


Knit Together

by dunn0man



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Athena Grant and Bobby Nash are Evan "Buck" Buckley's Parents, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Secrets, Firehouse 118 Crew as Family (9-1-1 TV), Head Injury, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Pre-Relationship Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Substance Abuse, Worried Firehouse 118 Crew (9-1-1 TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29338080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunn0man/pseuds/dunn0man
Summary: After Maddie's revelation in 4x04 Buck starts to come undone.He really shouldn’t have been surprised. The Buckley family was built on secrets, Buck had always known that. All the things Maddie and Buck had hidden from their parents as children for fear of punishment. All the things that happened after Maddie left college and were kept from her because they would be too upsetting or distracting. All the things that happened behind closed doors in the Kendall house. This had clearly just set the precedent.Spoilers for 4x04!
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Athena Grant, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Bobby Nash, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Everyone, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Howie "Chimney" Han, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley & May Grant, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 317
Kudos: 639





	1. Chapter 1

Buck is an emotional guy. Everyone knows that. It’s probably the most said thing about him: that he’s emotional and reckless and it’s true. For the most part, because yes, everything he feels he seems to feel right down to inside his bones, and yes, he doesn’t always think about his decisions or their consequences (see the lawsuit debacle for reference); but he’s also a master at ruling that emotion. He can, if he wants, contain it all, there is a version of Buck that's stoic and in control, and that version lives very close to the surface. Buck’s open emotion is like a shiny thing, he can wave it around and make it glint in the sun and everyone will look in whatever direction he points it. Maddie tends to think she was immune from this. She had been once, but then she had left him alone in that house and he’d gotten so good at it that he can’t turn it off even for her.

So, when Maddie tells him, with a grief behind her eyes that has laid untouched for years, he swallows his anger along with a bitter taste in his mouth. He looks at the photo and he waits to feel something. Maddie takes a shuddering breath and Buck puts his hand on her arm, because even if doing it makes his skin crawl, he came here to make amends and comfort her. So he tucks away the thoughts that echo around his head, telling him that if it weren’t for this photo she would never have told him. They sit in silence until Maddie has gathered herself back together and then she talks and he wants to tell her to stop. The words ‘I don’t want to know’ stick between the tip of his tongue and the roof of his mouth for the entire story. He feels sicker with every word she says. Can practically feel his bone marrow burning inside him when she talks about it, but he can’t take his eyes off the photo and he can’t get the words out. He thinks he’s finally had enough but then Maddie says one more thing.

“I couldn’t persuade them to take you to the funeral. I screamed and screamed and trashed my room but they wouldn’t budge. My hand caught in mom’s necklace and it broke and there were pearls all over the floor. And she burst into tears, it was the first time since he died that she cried. Dad took me by the shoulders and I really thought he was going to slap me.” She chuckles like it’s such a ridiculous thing to believe their father capable of. Buck tightens his hold on his emotions. “He said that if I didn’t stop they wouldn’t let me go either,” Her eyes spill over with tears once more, “So I stopped, and I went without you. I’m sorry.”

Another time that Maddie had left him behind to add to the list.

He hears himself speak, “That’s okay, Mads.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You were nine. It’s not like I would have remembered going anyway. And churches always make babies cry.”

She hugs him and he hates it. His head creates a morbid image of him throwing her to floor and he shakes it away, belly filling with self-loathing immediately. He pulls her arms off of him.

“Thank you for telling me.” She wasn’t going to, that little voice chimes up again. “I’m going to go.”

“No, Evan!” He’s too frayed around the edges not to flinch. “Buck,” She says more softly, “Please stay here.”

“No. I really want to be in my own space right now. I’ll text you when I’m home.”

“Buck…” She says her voice dripping with disappointment.

He doesn’t kiss her and he doesn’t say he loves her. He nods at Chim in the kitchen on his way out, and somehow he knows from the set of his face that Chim has known about this for a while and something else inside of him drops away.

He climbs in his Jeep and drives on autopilot until he’s parked outside his apartment. He turns the car off and sits. He can see the light on inside and the shadows of Albert moving around inside. He bashes his head against the steering wheel hard enough to set the car alarm off, swearing under his breath as he fumbles with the keys trying to silence it. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out to find a text.

**EDDIE**

_How’d it go with Maddie?_

Buck hovers over the call button for what feels like an actual eternity. A small part of him wants to be wrapped up in someones arms, to be reassured that he is genuinely loved. But, a larger part of him doesn’t want that. Wants to feel every moment of this… pain, or whatever it is. He thinks love might just break him right now. So he just shoots off a thumbs up emoji and knows that Eddie will take it to mean that he’s still with Maddie. He sends Maddie a text saying he got home safe then he turns his phone off. He starts the car up again and pulls away from his place. At first he just drives. That small part of him that wants comfort starts directing him towards Bobby and Athena’s but in the end he drives the other way and finds himself at a bar he used to frequent with his old roommates when he was new in LA. He sits at the end of the bar and goes for whisky, cheap and disgusting and he drinks. Boy, does he drink. The burn in his throat and the swirl in his stomach distract him from the fact that he is literally fall apart. Has been since Maddie started talking. He can feel his organs floating away from each other, his blood cells separating as if they can’t stand being near one another anymore. The more he drinks the more the anger shrinks and the relief grows, because whilst he knows that tomorrow the betrayal will hit around the same time as the hangover, right now it’s all making sense. Buck was literally born a failure. Unlike most of humanity he was brought into this world with a distinct purpose and he had failed immediately. And that stung like a son of a bitch, but at least his whole childhood made sense. Why his parents hated him just as much when he was a straight A student as they did when he was as good as a drop out. Why, when Maddie had taught him how to ride a bike and he’d dragged them outside to show off his mother had smiled tightly, shot Maddie a withering look then gone inside and not spoken to either of them for a week and a half.

He sees a familiar face across the bar and groans as a guy he knew a while back starts coming over.

“Well well well, if it isn’t firehose!” Cory greets, clapping him on the shoulder with a cheeky grin.

“Hi.” Buck greets downing the rest of his drink.

They exchange pleasantries and then Cory suggests shots and Buck knows he’s already had to much to drink, and a voice that sounds spookily like Eddie tells him to call it a night and call a cab, but his insides are still slowly drifting apart and so he says yes. Then again, and again and again. He says yes until the bar closes and Cory smiles his cheeky smile and persuades Buck to come back to his for old times sake. Buck isn’t sure if they have sex before or after they light up a joint, maybe both? He closes his eyes and tries his hardest not to think about Eddie, because even this fucked up he knows that he really shouldn’t think about Eddie when he comes, not to mention it’s kinda rude when he’s with another man. Afterwards, he lies on Cory’s futon feeling blissfully empty. Until a question pops into his head seconds before he goes to sleep, and it feels like he’s floating in it the whole night. No, drowning in it.

What would Daniel think of him?

*

Chimney is not worried because Buck is only five minutes late for his shift. And really, five minutes is not a lot. Five minutes is a slightly longer line at Starbucks than usual. So, he’s not freaking out. At all. But then Eddie walks up the stairs and stops when he sees Chim.

“Where’s Buck?”

“He’s not here yet.”

“He didn’t ride with you?”

“Why would he ride with me?”

“Well, didn’t he stay with you and Maddie last night?”

Okay, so now Chimney might be the tiniest bit worried. He gets up and stands in front of Eddie.

“No. He went home. Why would you think he stayed at mine?”

“I texted him last night to check how things went with Maddie and he just replied with a thumbs up.”

Chimney’s eyebrows rise, “So?”

“So Buck usually texts in paragraphs, unless he’s with someone.” Eddie says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Chim is tempted to tell him that Buck does not usually text _him_ in paragraphs. But it doesn't exactly feel appropriate given the circumstance. The possible circumstance. 

“He’s only five minutes late.” Chimney says with false calmness.

“He hasn’t replied to my last three texts.” Eddie says pulling his phone out. “Should we be worried?”

“Should we be worried about what?” Bobby asks joining them from the kitchen with lunch, Hen just behind him carrying more dishes.

“Buck.”

“What’s our boy done now?” Hen says, her usual levity lacking.

“He’s late.” Eddie says.

“He and Maddie had a pretty rough conversation last night.” Chimney adds.

“I’m sure he’ll be here soon.” Bobby says reassuringly.

After half an hour he’s not picking up any of their calls. His Find My Friends app places him at home nine pm yesterday, but when they call Albert he tells them Buck didn’t come home last night and he had assumed he was staying at Maddie’s. By the time an hour has passed and Buck still seems MIA, they decide to make some calls. Bobby’s is slightly easier: Athena curses but stays on the phone as she swings by Buck’s place and confirms that it’s empty and his car’s not there. She says she’ll run his plates, see if they can find him. Chimney is literally shaking as he calls Maddie. She doesn’t pick up the first time but he knows she at home so he just calls again.

“Howi-ard,” He frowns in confusion at her greeting, “Now’s not really a good time. My parents have just come over and-“

“Buck hasn’t come to work.”

“What?”

“He’s not at home, Albert says he never came back.”

“But he texted me.”

“I know. Can you think of anywhere he might go?”

“No, I - Oh my god, this is all my fault.”

“Maddie, calm down. Athena’s out looking. We’ll find him, okay?”

He just hopes it's soon. Preferably before the Buckley luck rears it's ugly head again. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a lil note, I have decided that the pandemic is over for the sake of my plot

Buck wakes up on the floor. His whole body feels like lead and he’s fairly certain that his brain has liquified and is sloshing from side to side inside his skull. He groans and pushes himself up only togag, he clamps his mouth shut before he ends up vomiting all over Cory’s carpet. He staggers to the bathroom and heaves into the toilet, stomach cramping and head vibrating with pain. He feels awful. He’s felt better waking up in hospital before. Probably had more drugs pumping through him those times. When his stomach finally stops rebelling he flushes and turns to the sink, squirting some toothpaste directly into his mouth and spreading it around with his tongue. He spits it out and barely stops himself from gagging again. He thinks he might still be drunk. He shoulders his way through the door and finds himself in the living room were Cory is sprawled on the couch and there are two girls sitting on the floor. He suddenly becomes very aware that he’s completely naked and feeling a blush spread from his toes to his forehead he quickly covers his dick with his hands only to list to the side now he’s not holding himself up anymore.

“You must be Buck!” One of the girls says chucking him a dish cloth.

“Um… yeah.” He says awkwardly holding it around himself

“Cory’s told us all about you.”

Buck crinkles his brow in confusion.

“You guys were friends a few years back…” She prompts.

“Oh.” God, his head fucking hurts. “What time is it?”

“Like 3.30. You guys slept all day.”

“Shit! Fuck! My shift started at 12. Fuck!”

He runs unsteadily to Cory’s room, picking up his jeans and shaking them out only to find his phone not there. Had he left in his car? Fuck. He’s so screwed.

He collects up his clothes realising pretty quickly that they reek of weed, not really surprising, Buck doesn’t think they’d even opened the windows. Probably a fire hazard.

“Hey, you okay Bucky?” Cory slurs coming in.

“I’m gonna have so many people on my ass and my ass is gonna smell of pot.”

“Grab a shower, you can borrow some of my clothes.” Buck opens his mouth to object but Cory cuts him off, “You’re already late, dude.”

“Thanks.”

The shower makes him feel slightly better, but the more Buck’s head clears the more his anger rears it’s ugly head. He leaves as soon as he’s dressed. Cory smacks his ass and says they should do it again some time. Buck’s head is so full of his parents and Maddie and… his brother, that he barely registers the thought that, whatever that was, it was very Buck 1.0. It gets harder to ignore as he struggled to remember which way they had walked from the bar. The last time he had seen Cory had been over three years ago, at that time he hadn’t spoken to his parents since he was eighteen and Maddie had been icing him out for almost as long. Buck didn’t have a family then, and as much as he loves Maddie and all the people he’s found over the last few years he can’t help but think maybe that was easier. At least then he could explain the loneliness that seems to follow him everywhere he goes. And for the first time since she walked back into his life he wishes that Maddie had never come back to him. If Maddie had never come to LA then he never would have spoken to his parents again and he could have gone on being miserable in peace. Even thinking it makes him start vomiting again. He wonders if he’s ever hated himself as much as he does in this moment. He thinks it would be impossible to, but then he remembers a time at seventeen and decides it actually might only be a close second. It takes him three steps forward to realise that he can’t exactly be mad at them for keeping this from him. He really shouldn’t have been surprised. The Buckley family is built on secrets, Buck has always known that. All the things Maddie and Buck had hidden from their parents as children for fear of punishment. All the things that happened after Maddie left college and were kept from her because they would be too upsetting or distracting. All the things that happened behind closed doors in the Kendall house. Daniel had clearly just set the precedent.

He especially shouldn’t feel betrayed by Maddie, considering what he’s hidden from her over the years; and despite the fact that this information has literally restructured his outlook on his entire life he thinks maybe the things he’s hiding would probably be worse for Maddie. He stops walking again because now he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t be mad and he can’t be betrayed because that’d make him a massive hypocrite, and he can’t be sad either because all he actually has to mourn is an idea. An idea and a photograph. There’s something in him feels deeply wrong but he doesn’t know what it is and he doesn’t know why. Really, this doesn’t change anything. It explains a lot but it doesn’t change any of it. It doesn’t help him understand or empathise with his parents. It doesn’t make it hurt less or remove any of the pressure.

By the time he’s wandered back to the bar and found his car he’s feeling angry at Maddie again but for the stupidest thing. Because Chimney had known. He’s not even mad at her for telling him. He’s mad at her because another person in Buck’s life loves Maddie more. He knows how stupid that sounds because Chimney is in love with Maddie, and he might be in love with a co-worker but not that one, so what’s he even jealous about? But the voice, the one that kept saying last night that Maddie wasn’t going to tell him, tells him that before Chimney would have told him as soon as he knew because he would have cared enough about Buck to do the right thing. To ease his pain. His loyalty to Maddie (which normally Buck cherished) has clouded that and Buck can’t escape the feeling that Chimney is no longer his friend in his own right. Just an extension of Maddie. He doesn’t want to be angry about that. So he sits in his car and tries to form at least one rational, coherent thought. Only, he can’t. He has no idea what to do, where to go, what to say. He looks at his phone in the cupholder and considers turning it on but his car clock is blinking 16.18 at him and the idea of the influx of notifications he’d have after being missing for four hours makes his chest tighten. He thinks he probably shouldn’t be driving because the sunlight is killing his head and it’s only going to get lower in the sky, but he’s too tired to care. He starts driving towards home and just hopes that no ones there waiting to kill him. He’s halfway there when he gets pulled over. Fuck, maybe he shouldn’t be driving. He has less than a minute to ponder whether he’d even pass a breathalyser, before there’s a uniformed officer at his window. Some firefighter he is.

“What’s the problem officer?”

“Your plates have been flagged. I’m going to have to ask you to wait for my Sergeant.”

Buck groans and resists the urge to bash his head in against he dash.

“Let me guess, Sergeant Grant.”

The young man looks shocked for a second before schooling his features and it’s all the confirmation Buck needs.

“Look man, I’d really like to get home so can you just call her and ask her to meet me at mine?”

“I’m not-“

“Just call her, please. She’ll tell you I’m not a suspect or anything.”

The officer looks sceptical for a minute before taking his phone out.

_‘Sergeant Grant.’_

“Sergeant Grant, This is officer Drew I’m with the driver of the car you put the-”

_‘I’m already on my way to you. Put him on the phone.’_

The officer blinks for a second then reluctantly holds the phone out to Buck.

“Thena, I know I’m in trouble but please can we do this at my place instead at the side of the road.”

‘ _I’m going to kill you, Buck. You know how many years you just took off my life? I’d get away with it too.’_

There’s an edge of emotion in her voice that cuts into Buck, right into a fresh and bleeding wound.

“I know.”

‘ _Give the officer his phone back and drive straight to yours. Don’t think I won’t have him tail you.’_

Buck hands the phone over and almost immediately the cop is signalling for him to go. Buck does drive straight home and breathes a tiny sigh of relief that he gets there before Athena. He tucks his phone into his back pocket, still turned off and makes his way up to his apartment. He unlocks the door and slumps against the door once it’s closed. His headache is back with a vengeance.

“Evan?” His mother’s voice makes him jump out of his skin.

“What are you doing here?”

“They came with me.” Maddie says coming around the corner, their father has his arm around her shoulder.

He shoves the angry words that threaten to spill down but can’t stop the ugly sneer from spreading on his face. Maddie eyes grow sadder.

“Where were you, Buck?”

“I was at a friend’s.”

“Who?”

“You don’t know them.”

“I know all your friends.” She says sounding lost.

“If the last few days have taught us anything its that we don’t know as much about each other as we think. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Evan, stop being cruel. We were worried.” His mother says.

He lets a smile curl in the corner of his lips and says, “Really?” He’s too tired to put any real heat behind it but that only seems to make it’s landing more harsh.

“We thought you’d done something stupid.” His father says and there’s a flash in his eye that Buck would really rather not address.

“More stupid than skipping a shift at the job you claim to care so much about to be with some strange friend.” His mother adds and his dad’s face shuts down just a little.

He’s saved by the door shoving into him. He stumbles out of the way as Athena forces her way in. She takes one look at Buck and then at Maddie and their parents. She doesn’t close the door behind her.

“Buck, baby, you got some explaining to do!” She notices Mrs Buckley bristle at the use of baby and can’t help but take some satisfaction in it.

Buck’s eyes meet hers and somehow the first things that registers isn’t how bloodshot they are, or how tired and lost they look, but the silent plea to be saved from whatever is happening in this apartment. She nods the tiniest bit and he sags in on himself in what she has to hope is relief. She turns to the room at large, opening her mouth to speak only for Margaret to get there first.

“Who are you?”

“Sergeant Grant. I’m a friend of your son.”

Margaret sniffs disapprovingly, looking towards Maddie, “Do you know _this_ one?”

Maddie rubs her forehead, “Mom, Sergeant Grant is married to Buck’s captain.”

If looks could kill Maddie would be dead. However much she might love her husband, Athena does not appreciate being reduced to a wife. Especially, when doing so belittles her relationship with Buck. One she formed completely outside of Bobby. Whilst it’s true that their mutual love and fondness for Buck nurtured her maternal instincts exponentially once they were together, Buck had already implanted himself firmly in her heart before that. She is not going to have Buck question that just so Maddie can placate their mother.

“That’s true, but I’m here as a friend not as a Captain’s wife, and you know that Maddie. Mr and Mrs Buckley, as much as I’d love a formal introduction why don’t you two take Maddie home now.” It isn’t a suggestion and it doesn’t leave any room for argument.

That doesn’t stop Margaret Buckley.

“Excuse me, but-”

“You’re excused. Have a safe journey now.” She levels Maddie with a look that has her reluctantly ushering her parents out, casting one last sorrowful look at Buck.

Once she had sat Buck down on the couch with a glass of water, she settles herself on the coffee table opposite him to begin her interrogation.

“Where were you?”

“I was at an old friend's.”

She arches her eyebrow, “That whose clothes you’re wearing?”

Buck cringes and swallows, “I ran into him last night and I just wanted to get away. I didn’t mean to miss my shift I swear. My phone died and I let him talk me into one too many tequila shots.”

She leans back and crosses her arms.

“I swear, Athena. I did not mean to disappear.” He sees her face soften and he feels the slightest bit guilty for lying.

“Okay, Buckeroo.” She says placing a reassuring hand on his knee. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Other than the massive hang over?” She questions pretending to find amusement in it for both of their sakes.

Buck huffs a laugh. “Yeah, apart from that.”

“One too many tequila shots is one thing, but Buck I don’t need to warn you what a dangerous path that is to go down when you’re struggling. So, I will ask you again, are you okay? What’s going on with your parents?”

Buck kinda wishes he was still a bit high but he’s definitely sober now.

“I had a brother who died.” He hears Athena’s sharp in take of breath but carries on. “He had cancer and no one was a bone marrow match so they had another kid. A designer baby.” He looks up at her and hates the pity he sees in her eyes. “Only, something went wrong and I ended up not being a match. He died like a year later and they just swept him under the rug. Made Maddie promise not to talk about him.”

Athena moves to sit next to him, wrapping an arm around him and he kind of feels like he should be crying or something but he’s just tired. He appreciates the gesture but where it would normally bring comfort it’s making his skin crawl.

“They brought Maddie a baby box and it had a picture of him it. I don’t think they were ever going to tell me. I always knew they didn’t want me but I thought I was just an accident, an unexpected pregnancy or something but…” He draws himself up and away from Athena, “It explains a lot.”

Athena has to get back to work and despite her best efforts he refuses to go to the firehouse or the Grant-Nash house. She even tries guilt tripping him with missing May’s big life updates but immediately regrets it when she sees just how exhausted he is. She tucks him up in bed before she goes. He’s going to need plenty of rest because there’s going to be a horde of angry firefighters at his door by the end of the day.

Buck lays in bed and feels the ghost of the kiss Athena had planted on his forehead and he thinks about wishing that he’d never reconnected with his family. He thinks about how just one secret has made Maddie’s love seem so disingenuous even he knows better than that. He thinks about his parents never being capable of loving him. Thinks about how there’s not a single person in this world that he loves that he’s not hiding massive parts of himself from. If one secret has done this to him and Maddie what would just one of his many secrets do to the people he loves. He decides he must not be capable of love. Real love. Not giving it and not receiving it. The thought of all the people he loves presses in on him and he can’t breathe. He’s shaking and gasping and completely incapacitated by thought of all the lives he’s ruining with his rotten, selfish version of love.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was reposted because I uploaded the wrong draft.

“I don’t know what else you want me to say.” Buck is bored to death of this conversation and he desperately wants them all out of his apartment before he freaks the fuck out.

“I just don’t believe you!”

“Well, that’s not really my problem, Howard.” He snaps back.

“Okay, everyone take a breath.” Bobby says, stepping forward and gently pushing Chim back out of Buck’s personal space.

Hen sidles up to him and takes his hand gently in hers, and God, he wishes people would stop touching him because it’s starting to make his skin burn.

“This just isn’t like you, Buck. Not anymore. You must see why we’re so worried.”

“I know, but I’ve told you it was a mistake and I’m sorry.”

Hen just tuts disappointedly.

“I fought so hard to get back to this job, you really think I’d risk throwing it all away on purpose?”

“Buck, that’s not what we’re accusing you of.”

“Then what is it you’re accusing me of Cap?”

Bobby falters for just a second and Buck throws his hands up, he’s about to tell them all to get out but then Eddie speaks for the first time since they arrived.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are. You lied to Maddie last night and you’re lying now.”

“Actually, I didn’t lie to Maddie because I was home, I just left again.”

“Kid,” Bobby says and he sounds almost as tired as Buck feels, “You received some pretty heavy news last night and then you disappeared for a day, only to turn up hungover. And we’re not here to shout at you-”

“Yes we are!” Interjects Chimney.

Bobby cuts him a warning glare, “We’re trying to get you to open up to us because we know you’re hurting and we want to help you. Please just let us?”

“I’m not hurting.”

“Buck-“

“No, really. I’m not. It was a shock, alright, and it’s sad but it’s not like I would have even remembered him. All the things between me and my parents are the same, and they’re things I’m working on with Dr. Copeland.”

Chim opens his mouth to interrupt again.

“Yes, I’m upset with Maddie, and I might need a minute when it comes to her, but it’s not like I’ve never kept stuff from her. She was just keeping a promise, and rationally I know that. Last night really was an accident. And a coincidence.”

Bobby rubs his temple, “I’m not going to write you up for it-“

“I don’t need special treatment!”

“I’m not going to write you up for it. Call it a sick day, but you never do it again, Buck, you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Cap.”

“And we’re here for you, when you’re ready to talk.”

“I know. Thank you.”

Bobby has his hands on hips, clearly unsatisfied with the outcome, but able to recognise a losing battle. Buck thanks them again for coming over and apologises one more time and they traipse out the door. All of them except Eddie. Buck turns to him, frustration bubbling under his skin.

“Goodbye, Eddie.”

Eddie leans back against the staircase, arms crossed and jaw clenched in an obvious challenge.

“Christopher’s with Abuela tonight, I’m all yours.”

Just a day ago Buck would’ve gone wobbly in the knees at hearing Eddie say those words. He would have had to turn away and hide his blush and use every ounce of his self-control to stop himself from professing his undying love then and there. Right now, he kinda wants to smack the smug look off Eddie’s face and never be in the same room as him again. His chest aches twice as hard as usual when he thinks about the life he wants with Eddie. Eddie is so good, he’s not perfect but he’s good and he’s full of love and Buck is only ever going to ruin that. He can’t do that to Eddie and he definitely can’t do it to Chris. He cannot risk poisoning the love Eddie has for Christopher. Buck thinks just being in his presence is enough to strip anyone of parental love.

“I appreciate that, man. But I have an appointment with Dr Copeland later and I’d really rather have some privacy.” It’s a lie, but one more won’t hurt.

Eddie’s confidence drops right of his face, “Buck, I would never invade your privacy. I just want to be here for you.”

“I don’t need you, Eds.” Okay, two more.

His face twists and he looks like the floor has just disappeared from under his feet. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on Buck's part, because Eddie doesn’t look heartbroken over him because he doesn’t love Buck. Not like that.

“Buck…” Eddie barely whispers. He strides up to Buck and cupping the back of Buck’s neck begs, “Please just talk to me?”

Buck couldn’t form the words to explain his head right now even if he wanted to. And he doesn’t want to. He looks into Eddie’s eyes and relives all the times Eddie has told him to stop feeling sorry for himself, to suck it up, soldier on. Eddie hates self-pity. Eddie’s a fucking hypocrite. He wants to lash out. He wants to say something like, ‘Yeah, because you’re the expert in using your words aren’t you, Eddie?’. Maybe anger would be enough to make Eddie think he’s reacting appropriately, but Buck doubts that. He’s wounded Eddie enough for one evening anyway.

“There’s really nothing to talk about. Go home and be with Christopher.”

“Come with me?”

“Eddie, I am asking you, please leave.”

Eddie bows his head in defeat but squeezes Buck’s shoulder lovingly before leaving.

*

Buck wallows, because that’s what Buck does best. He wallows and he ignores the echo of Athena’s voice every time he drinks himself to sleep. He’s not an idiot. He’s always sober by the time his shift rolls around. Slowly but surely the other’s start to drop it, he’s loud and he’s silly and he splurges random research facts at scenes and pranks Chimney and plays video games with Hen and works out with Eddie and helps Bobby cook. He does everything he normally would whist distancing himself as best he can. He’s too busy to go over to Eddie’s. Sorry, he’s got to run some errands, dinner with the Grant-Nash clan will have to wait. Nah, Hen, he can’t baby sit tonight he’s got plans with an old friend. That one’s kind of true. He’s been hooking up with Cory every now and again and maybe one or two other people he meets in bars. Can you blame him? Isn’t that what everyone is doing after a global pandemic? He doesn’t bother with excuses for Chim and Maddie, especially after Margaret and Philip extended their stay for another week and a half. Buck is almost impressed with how quickly he’s allowed his life to spiral out of control. That probably just means that he wasn’t as in control as he thought he was. A few weeks ago all this distance would have made him lonely. Lonelier. But he relishes it now. All the space and the emptiness and how little pressure comes with it. How he doesn’t have to hide anything or even feel anything when no one is watching. It’s not even that different because they might think they love him but they don’t really. They can’t. No one can love Buck the way he wants to be loved, the way he needs. Because, that kind of love doesn’t actually exist anywhere outside of Buck’s hopes and dreams.

They’ll figure it out soon enough. One day, someone, probably Hen because she is the smartest, will look at all the little lies and see them for what they are. They’ll try and have an intervention again, maybe. Tell him how much they love him. He’ll take it with a pinch of salt like he has since after the ladder truck. Hey, maybe they won’t notice. They didn’t when they were the ones doing it. Admittedly, he’s doing it on purpose but they’re all busy people with plenty of claims on their time and they’re not going to question him taking up a little bit less of it. He desperately hopes they don’t notice, because he’s getting comfortable. Albert being home makes his ears ring. And Hen’s playful shoves make his skin itch. Bobby’s shoulder pats make him recoil. Even fist bumps with Eddie are starting to make him feel nauseous. He just wants to be as alone on the outside as he is on the inside. He’s considered taking out another lawsuit just so can stop speaking to them all again. Only this time he’d enjoy the peace and quiet, the emptiness. Only jokingly of course. There’s not even anything he could file a law suit over.

It takes him a while to realise that he’s retreated into his middle school self. A person inside a body pretending about absolutely everything. Maybe seeing his parents flipped a switch in himself he thought long gone. It only took two dinners and he was back in survival mode. Buck thinks he’s an idiot for ever leaving survival mode.

He’s on his way out to go see Cory, already slightly buzzed from the beer he chugged upon his return from work, when the door bell rings.

“Albert did you order food?” He shouts back into the apartment already reaching to open the door.

Albert comes over saying no as Buck swings the door open. He feels his posture straighten the second he meets his father’s eyes.

Albert stares at the two Buckley men, both standing ramrod straight with their jackets on.

“You know, I was just about to head to the store…” He says making a grab for his keys.

“It’s fine, Albert.” Buck turns to him just a fraction without ever taking his eyes off his father. “I’m on my way out. I’ll walk you to your car, Philip.”

“I walked.”

“Then we’ll walk to my car.”

They stare at each other for another moment before Philip steps aside and Buck steps out of the apartment. As he’s closing the door his eyes flick to Albert.

“No, need to tell Chim and Maddie about this.” He says pointedly and in a voice so unlike Buck that Albert can’t help but nod mutely.

Philip and Buck remain in silence until they reach Buck’s car. It makes Buck bristle. They stand by the side of the jeep in the LA dusk and Philip looks at him and says nothing.

“You came here for a reason?” Buck snaps, agitation spilling over.

Philip, ever calm and composed, simply nods. Buck rolls his eyes and goes to get into his car. Philip grabs his harm then lets go almost instantly, regret clear on his features.

“We’re leaving tomorrow.”

Buck snarls under his breath and takes a second to compose himself before turning back to his father.

“Thank you for the update. Drive safe.” He unlocks his jeep.

“Evan…”

“What? What is it that you want to say?”

“We tried.”

“No you didn’t.”

“We did.” His father says sounding forceful in his desperation.

“No, you stood by and watched.” Evan says getting in his space.

His father’s face curls with hurt, “I love her, Evan.” His tone makes it clear it’s not an apology but it’s not exactly an excuse either.

“All I’m hearing is that you don’t love me.”

His father steps forward too, making them impossibly close.

“I do. I just… I need her. I wouldn’t survive without her. Not after...”

Not enough bounces around Buck’s head, pinging off his skull like an old pinball machine. Part of him thinks that the fact his father is here, saying any of this at all means something. But whatever that something is it’s not enough. He knows he’s supposed to be thankful that his father is trying, but all the raw emotion just makes Buck think ‘This is it. My one shot to make him hurt too.’

“Do you ever regret it?” Buck says quietly enough that his father will know exactly what he’s talking about.

His father pales a shade. He lifts his hand for a second, an aborted act of comfort. Instead he looks Buck dead in the eye and with his usual steeliness, only perhaps quieter, he says:

“No. Not for a second.”

Buck swallows in a breathe, because suddenly he feels like he’s drowning again. Floating in murky water filled with debris and bodies. He looks away at the streetlights turning on, trying to clear his eyes of their tears and his brain of it’s thoughts. When he looks back to his father there’s that guilty look that Buck has always hated more than anything.

“And Daniel? Do you regret doing that?” He says that but he gestures to himself.

It’s his father’s turn to gather himself up.

“I regret, very much, that I lost my son.” His voice breaks and Buck is awed by the realisation that he can pity the man in front of him. “But, ultimately, I can’t regret the decision we made.”

Buck scoffs and nearly decks him. He steps away and unlocks his car again, waiting til his hand is on the door to speak.

“Bullshit, Dad. Go back to your warden.”

He pretends not to see his father’s shoulders crumple. He ignores the heaving sobs he can see in his side mirror as he drives away.


	4. Chapter 4

His parent’s leave and Maddie starts desperately trying to reach out. Every time he looks at his phone he has a missed call or a text. He can’t escape her presence. Just like he can’t escape his conversation with his father. All Buck’s thoughts lead back to it and Maddie’s pestering is not helping. He’s kept it cool at work, he’s even managed not to let his hurt at Chimney taint any of their interactions, but the constant notifications buzzing in are making his anger burn hot and red. They’re sitting round the table after lunch and it’s been a fairly quiet day. Chim is convinced that Martha Stuart is from Virginia.

“Why would she be from Virginia?” Hen asks incredulously

“I don’t know, Hen, why would anyone be from Virginia?” Chimney shoots back.

Buck has no idea how this conversation even started.

“Everyone knows she’s from New Jersey.”

“Actually, Cap, I don’t think they do.” Eddie chimes in.

“Thank you!” Chim exclaims, throwing his hands up.

“I never said she was from Virginia, dude.” Eddie replies cheekily.

“This is ridiculous.” Buck says picking his phone up to google it when he sees that he has not only two texts and a missed call, but also an email. She’s fucking emailing him. It’s the last straw. Consider the camel’s back officially broken. He can’t help the dark cloud that passes over his face and he feels Eddie tense next to him. Buck locks the phone and slams it down on the table a little too forcefully. When he looks up, brows furrowed hard enough to give him a headache, he sees Chimney sitting across from him and his anger begs for release.

“Did your girlfriend learn nothing from the whole stalking incident?” He says viciously and Chimney’s face blinks into pure surprise. “Tell her to leave me the fuck alone before I cancel my goddam phone plan.” He pushes away from the table leaving his phone behind and heads straight for the punching bag.

The four of them sit at the table under a blanket of shock.

“Well, damn.”Hen mutters, breaking the silence.

Eddie’s up and going after Buck a second later. He considers letting him carry on, work some of this anger out, because Eddie knows that’s necessary. But Eddie also knows when it’s going too far and Buck slamming unwrapped fists into the bag hard enough to rock it over on the stand is definitely too far. He wraps a hand around Buck’s bicep before he can swing back for the next shot and he doesn’t miss the shiver that runs up Buck’s spine. He pulls out of Eddie’s touch, hands still clenched but he turns away from the punching bag.

“Take a breath.” He instructs.

Buck huffs out a hot breath, nostrils flaring and that’s not quite what Eddie meant but he’ll take it. He’ll take anything Buck gives him if he’s being honest.

“You good?”

Buck nods curtly and tries to walk away. Eddie blocks him. He simply raises an eyebrow when Buck glares at him.

“She can’t leave anything alone.” Buck says shortly.

“She’s your sister, she’s not supposed to leave you alone. Don’t remember you being much of a fan of it when she did either.”

“I’m talking about boundaries, Eddie. She acts like I don’t deserve any just because we share some DNA. She hasn’t just crossed the line, man, she’s set up camp on the other side.”

“She’s worried about you and she’s trying to reach out. Maybe if you-”

“I’m not talking about that.” Buck snarls.

“Well, what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about, ever since Maddie came home she’s been the one dictating my relationship with our Mom and Dad and I’m sick of it.”

Eddie crinkles his brow, he’s not quite sure what Buck means. He thinks he gets it. He’s mostly just glad that Buck is talking to him about any of this at all.

“I know you’re mad at her, but she can’t change anything if she doesn’t know what she needs to change.”

“I just need some space first.”

*

Chimney sits at the table and he feels like a kid that’s just been scolded. Or maybe bullied? Eddie gets up and goes after Buck, Bobby doesn’t look far off following.

“I’m going to… I should call M… my girlfriend.” He echos Buck’s spiteful words.

She picks up almost immediately.

“Hey, Howie! Everything okay?”

“Maddie, Buck just lost his shit.”

“I’m on my way over right now.”

“No! No, Maddie, do _not_ come down here.”

“What? But Buck-”

“Lost his shit over you ‘stalking’ him.”

“What?”

“Maddie, he was really mad. I think you need to give him some space.”

“I just want my brother to be okay!”

“He will be. You might just have to wait for him to come to you.”

*

Fate seems to be on Buck’s side as they get called out to a three car pile up before Eddie is able to take his heart to heart any further. It takes them three hours and by the time they’re back everyone seems willing to move on and pretend it didn’t happen.Buck should have known better than that. He carefully doesn’t loiter at the end of shift, quickly gets changed and heads straight for the door. Only, Bobby was clearly expecting that and is sitting leaning against Buck’s bumper. Buck exhales through clenched teeth and tries to release the last of the anger swirling in his chest.

“Buck.”

“I’m tired, can we not.”

“Buck.” Bobby says more sternly, forcing Buck to look him in the eye. “Please come over for dinner tonight. The kids are with Michael, it’ll just be Athena and me.”

“Bobby.” It’s an obvious no.

“Fine,” Bobby says pushing himself off the car, he puts his hand on Buck’s shoulder, “In that case, I’ll say this to you now: talk to your sister before you explode. I know you two and I know that you can make it through whatever it is.” He pats his shoulder as he walks away. He calls over his shoulder, “Invitation is always open if you change your mind.”

*

Three days pass and Buck is supposed to be getting drunk with Cory and his roommates but instead he finds himself outside Maddie’s door. He knocks once. Even his knock is angry.

“Buck!” She moves to throw herself at him but he steps back cooly. Her smile sinks into a little downturned frown.

She takes a deep breath and steps aside to let him in. He stands opposite the couch and she sits, big eyes looking up at him expectantly. Chimney comes out of the kitchen and stands with his back against the wall, ready to jump in if things get out of hand. Buck doesn’t mind, he’s even a little bit relieved, because he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to stop himself when he should.

“I’m so mad at you.”

“I know. I’m sorry. They made me promise and I thought I was protecting you.”

“Not about that.”

“What?”

“I’m not even angry about that anymore. Or about you telling Chim first.”

Maddie shares a quick, confused look with Chimney, then turns and asks, “What are you angry about then?”

“That you brought them here without asking me first and then you expected me to be your support system.”

“Buck, I just wanted to _try_ and fix things and they did too.”

“But I didn’t, Maddie!”

“They’re our parents-”

“That doesn’t mean that you and I are in remotely the same position!”

She has tears blinking in her eyes and it somehow makes him angrier.

“They didn’t cut me off, Maddie,” She looks wounded at the reminder of what they did to her, just like she had at dinner, “I cut them off. I chose to do that. I left home because _I_ never wanted to see them again, not because they made me! I never called them first, and I didn’t pick up when they called. I even had Dad’s yearly email going straight to my junk folder because I don’t care what he has to say. They didn’t know what country I was in, let alone state, because that’s how I wanted it. Until you called them after the ladder truck. Without asking me.”

“You were in surgery.”

“You could have waited! I would have told you-”

“You’re their son, Evan. I had to at least give them the chance to do the right thing.”

“I didn’t want them to have that chance! I deliberately left my next of kin form empty, Maddie! That’s how much I did not want them to be part of my life. But you just had to know better didn’t you?”

Stricken, Maddie sinks deeper into the couch.

“That call after Doug was the first time since I was 18 that I had talked to them and I was hoping it would be the last. But not only did you feel you were in the right to invite them back into my life, you’ve also been keeping them updated on my life. Telling them personal things!”

“I just thought-”

“Thought what? That I’m still your kid brother and you can still make all my decisions for me? That I’m so incapable I don’t deserve privacy? If I wanted them to know about my life, I would tell them.”

He knows he’s being cruel but he has to say this. And Chimney hasn’t stopped him yet so maybe he actually has a point.

“They asked.” She says voice very small and hands clutched protectively around her bump.

“So tell them I don’t want them to know!”

She sturdies herself and Buck can already tell he’s not going to like what she’s going to say.

“I know things weren’t easy, and I’m not saying you should forgive them, but they do love us, in their own way. Don’t you think this is a bit extreme?”

“How blind are you, Maddie? Our childhoods were nothing alike! We have completely different relationships with them. You have no idea what that they were like after you left.” He trails off, regret filling every inch of him. Like ice water being poured through him.

“So tell me! Tell me, Buck. Because I know all about the loneliness.”

“I’ve said what I came here to say. I’ll see you at work, Chimney.” He grunts, heading out.

“Buck, talk to me!”

“No!” He swings around, and Maddie flinches a little. “You’ve proved that I can’t trust you.”

Buck should feel like he’s walking on clouds. He should feel a hundred times lighter now he’s got all that off his chest but all he feels is raw. He thought more about his past in that twenty minutes than he consciously had in the last ten years. He feels like his whole body is bleeding into his stomach. He ignores the way there’s no actual air getting into his lungs and finds the nearest bar. He drinks until a girl with a face that just won’t come into focus starts flirting with him. They have sex in the tiny bathroom. He’s started carrying around condoms in his wallet again. When she slips away back into the crowd his chest is starting to burn. He stumbles outside and despite the cool night air he still can’t breathe. His vision is filling with black spots and his feet struggle to find their way forward, desperately begging to just let them give up. It feels like hours before he can breathe again and he can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or the oxygen deprivation that has the world doing cartwheels. He crumbles to the curb, hanging his head between his knees and sucks in breath after breath until the ground beneath his feet feels solid once more. He stands up, swaying only slightly, and it takes his brain a minute to click but he recognises Bobby’s neighborhood. He considers it for a second, even starts heading in the right direction, but it’s three in the morning and he’s as drunk as a skunk and if he really wants everyone to think he’s okay this is not the way to do it. He starts the long way home.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Buck Begins was great and I've definitely used it for inspiration when it comes to Buck's past but as a whole it doesn't fit with this fic. 
> 
> TW: this chapter discusses self-harm so please read carefully!

Buck’s okay. He’s fine. Completely totally fine. Sure, he’s not sleeping, like at all, like even when he’s drunk himself into a stupor. The nightmares ripple through his mind even in his half-asleep state. Not the kind he’s had after the truck, or the embolism, or the tsunami, or the lawsuit (grocery store). The kind he had as a kid, where he walks around his house and his life seeing everything through a murky film and despite it looking normal every single nerve ending in his body is alight with fear. The kind that don’t have you jolting upright, tangled in the sheets, shout on your lips, but rather leave you frozen in bed, unsure if you’ve woken up at all, even hours after you have; submerged in a cold dread that settles just under your breast bone, that seems shallow your breath and slow the world around you to an unnatural pace. He used to get them a lot when he was a child and Maddie would ask what was wrong, he’d say, ‘my life is a nightmare’. He’d laugh every time, _funny cuz it’s true,_ Maddie never got the joke but she’d always smile when Evan laughed. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to curl up in her arms and let her patch up his wounds. But Maddie had stopped patching his wounds a long time ago, she had too many of her own to mend.

That hadn’t stopped Buck though, not at first. When she left he only got more reckless, convinced that if he hurt himself enough she would come back to fix him. She never did. It only took a year or so for him to be glad that she didn’t. For the cuts and scrapes to be hidden instead of worn as a badge of success, proof of wanted attention garnered. And Buck had stopped for a bit, because his stunts, his pain, was no longer awarded with angry concern, only anger. There’s only so much hurt a thirteen year old can take. But Buck could always take more. So he started again. His father shook his head and said, in a defeated tone, that he was an adrenaline junkie. His father was wrong. He didn’t mind the thrill, the moments where it felt like he was flying, maybe he did like it even, but wasn't what he craved. He did it for the landing. The fall and crunch. The thud. ‘You think you’re invincible, don’t you, Evan?’ Dr. Bradbury had asked with a chuckle while he treated Buck’s broken collarbone. He’d tumbled down a hill after skitching on a delivery truck. Buck wanted to say it wasn’t about invincibility, it was about control. But at fourteen he knew that would get him chucked in a looney bin or something. He’d gotten in his father’s car afterwards, sat defiantly in the front seat even though Philip hated that. He’d struggled with his seatbelt and one functioning hand until his father had reached across and with startling gentleness buckled him in. Despite his care, when he let go the seatbelt twanged back into the holder, pressing sharply against the broken bone. Evan couldn’t help but smile a little as he winced.

“Evan?” His father had said, hands hovering.

“It’s nothing, dad.”

Philip straightened in his seat, glancing around the hospital parking lot. He placed both hands on the wheel but made no move to start the car. He eyed his son.

“Evan…”

The boy cut him with a glare. _Do you really want to have this conversation?_ Philip had hung his head. No, no he did not. He knew that if Maddie was there she would. If Maddie were there the conversation likely wouldn’t need to be had. And if Daniel were there… well. If Daniel were there. He sighed, the self-hatred practically audible in the small space, and started the car. Evan looked out the window.

Buck shakes the memory from his head. He’s been doing that a lot recently. His brain forcing him on trips down memory lane with little to no warning. It feels like he’s no longer in control of his brain. That’s always been his problem though. He pulls up to the station, rubbing his eyes roughly before he gets out of the car. The others are already sitting around the table with a massive breakfast spread by the time he’s gotten changed. The rum from last night rolls around in the bottom of his stomach. He greets them bouncily and does not miss the way Eddie looks at him worriedly, or is it accusingly? He considers sitting opposite him, just to avoid the weirdness oozing off him but thinks that might only make it worse. He takes his usual seat next to Eddie. Only it’s a mistake because Eddie turns to him clearly intending to say something only for it to die on his lips as he catches sight of Buck’s shirt collar.

“Is that a hickey?” Eddie asks stunned.

Buck scrambles to adjust his top. How could he be so stupid? Rum, that’s how. They’re all staring at him and their expressions remind him just a little too much of the Buck 1.0 days.

“It’s nothing.” He mumbles filling his plate despite his complete lack of appetite.

“Are you seeing someone, Buck?” Bobby asks trying his hardest to sound light hearted.

Buck’s about to say no, but he guesses he kind of is. But, if you’re not exclusive at all does it count as ‘seeing someone’? He sits there, mouth agape, like a fish.

“Well that explains why you look so tired.” Chim says at the same time Eddie speaks.

“I went by yours last night.”

Everyone turns to him, Chimney’s comment forgotten immediately.

“What? Why?”

Eddie’s grip on his spoon is just a little too tight.

“To check on you. I thought maybe we could do movie night, but Albert said you were at your friend’s, that you usually stayed the night.”

Buck is pretty sure that he’s just imagining the jealousy in Eddie’s voice. He takes a big sip of coffee and readjusts himself his his chair.

“I guess, I’ve sort of been seeing someone. It’s not that serious.”

“Who?” Eddie asks tersely.

“An old friend.” Buck says cheerily, trying to gain back some composure. He feels like his skin under his shirt is burning.

“Not the one who you disappeared with, right?” Hen says, eyes narrowing.

“No. Just been getting back in touch with a few people since then.” He says with a measured smile.

They drop it after a while, when Buck refuses to tell them _her_ name, you know, in case it jinxes them. And if Eddie has a kicked puppy look on his face for the rest of the day when he thinks no one is watching, well that’s none of Buck’s concern. Right? If anything it works out better than he expected because now when he blows them off he just gets a slight ribbing about his girlfriend instead of not-so-subtle concerned looks. He thinks that’s it. Then Eddie corners him in the locker room at the start of a shift.

“Hey, man. Can we talk?”

Buck nearly shuts his hand in the locker.

“Sure.”

“You’ve been pulling away, and, well I was kinda mad. You promised after the lawsuit that you wouldn’t do that to me, to Chris.”

Guilt fills Buck from head to toe. It’s for the best he reminds himself.

“Eds, I’m so sorry.”

“No!” Eddie cuts him off, “No. I was mad but then… well your girlfriend. I know that I ask a lot of you, and that sometimes we… well we’re close, right? And maybe some people would say too close. Like, a girlfriend, maybe.” Buck opens his mouth to object, but Eddie just keeps rolling, “So, I wanted to say that I get it. I’m not mad, if you need a bit of space or something from me. But, please, call Chris or something. He really misses you.” Eddie looks away, red dusting his cheeks.

“Eddie-” Buck starts only to be interrupted by Bobby sticking his head around the door.

“Buck, someone’s here looking for you.”

Buck looks between Bobby and Eddie for a second before, clapping Eddie on the shoulder (it stings) and following Bobby. He can feel Eddie trailing behind him. He comes out into the bay and Hen and Chimney are staring at none other than Cory. Fuck. He smiles.

“Hey, Bucky. Sorry to,” He motions around him and Buck can’t help but stare at the bite marks from last night that are not even remotely hidden by Cory’s tank top, “but you left this at my place.” He waggles Buck’s wallet in his other hand.

“Oh.” He says still standing a few feet away. Hen and Chimney are no longer staring at Cory. They’re staring at Buck. He suddenly strides forward to Cory, taking the wallet, “Thank you.”

Cory shifts on the spot, completely aware of the heavy awkward tension, “No problem, see you later.” He goes to kiss Buck before stopping and giving him an awkward side hug.

Buck breathes a sigh of relief as Cory turns to go, already crafting a bashful smile onto his face when Chimney calls out.

“You’re the… girlfriend?”

Cory’s very confused eyes meet Buck’s panicked ones.

“Uh… I mean by definition no.” He says.

“Right, sorry, that’s not what I meant.” Chimney trips over his words.

Cory ignores him, stepping closer to Buck again.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky. I thought they’d know.” He says lowly.

Buck sucks in a breath, “It’s okay.” He reassures, hand coming up to squeeze Cory’s neck.

“I’m going to go. Nice to meet you, I guess.” Cory waves and leaves.

“Buck?” Hen’s voice is disconcerting small and uncertain.

Buck turns putting his wallet into his pocket.

“You’re dating a guy?” Eddie says harsh and rough.

Buck holds back a flinch, “Yeah, I’m bi.”

“How come you never told us?” Hen asks.

“Never came up before now. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal?” Buck says casually and it seems to reset the whole room.

“Right. Of course, it doesn’t have to be.” Bobby says.

Eddie has that kicked puppy look again. It’s going to be a long twelve hours.

*

He’d never come out to his parents either. They’d found out of course. One of the only two times they’d come home early from one of his Dad’s business dinners and found Buck and Matthew Cole-Reese making out. It resulted in a brief shouting match, a bleeding ear, and a ‘What were you thinking, Evan?’, followed by a two week silent treatment. He was no more ashamed about that part of himself than any other part. He and Matt had stopped being anything other than acquaintances, especially after Buck joined the football team. He didn’t have a relationship with a guy until after he left their house. He didn’t have a relationship with anyone until after he left their house. Too much to hide.

*

He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised to see Maddie standing on his doorstep when he gets home. So much for boundaries.

“Chimney said you had a tough day at work. He didn’t tell me what happened.” She rushes to add. “And I’ll leave if you want to me to, but I’m here if you don’t.”

Might as well get this over with before Chimney loses it over another Buckley secret.

“I’m bi, Maddie. The 118 met the guy I’ve been sleeping with.”

Her mouth forms a perfect little ‘o’.

“Sleeping with?”

“Well, we’re not exactly dating.” They’re not dating at all, but he’s not about to say friends with benefits in case the phrase 'sex addict' starts getting thrown around again.

“Okay. Okay. Well, thank you for telling me. Do you- do you want to get take-out?” She says nervously.

“Honestly, I want to sleep for three days straight. Thank you for checking in.” She smiles tentatively and he moves around her to unlock his door.

“I miss you, Buck.” She blurts out.

He doesn’t turn to look at her, “I miss you too, Maddie.” He’s always misses Maddie, even when she’s there.

“I’m here if you need me.”

“I know.” He says, closing the door. You’re not, he thinks when it’s closed.

*

He hadn’t seen her in years. He thought most people probably wouldn’t have to crash their motorbike to see their sister. He’d missed her. It only took him a few minutes to realise that he missed a version of her that no longer seemed to exist. He saw the silhouettes of bandages under her scrubs and he couldn’t help but wonder if she could see it on him the way he could see it on her. The answer was obviously no.

She says no too.

Turned him away in his hour of need only to turn up at the house. Twenty minutes too late to stop him receiving a bloody nose. He’s cleaned it all off by time he goes outside. She handed over the keys but refused to go with him and a little part of him broke irreparably because if anyone deserved to escape it was Maddie. But he left. He left four months before his nineteenth birthday with barely any money and a still healing shoulder. He left and he tried not to look back.

He allowed himself, allowed Maddie, the postcards. He had always been sentimental, much to his mother’s chagrin. And for years all he had to remind him of home was a jeep, that cost much more than it was worth to give him, and an unwanted email every April. It was fitting really.


	6. Chapter 6

He doesn’t remember the last time he slept, the last time he ate, the last time he even moved. He wants to call Eddie. He wants to be sitting on the couch with Chris tucked between the two of them and Eddie’s hand across the back of the cushions just brushing Buck’s neck. He wants to be standing at the Diaz kitchen sink washing dishes with Eddie’s hip unnecessarily pressed against his. He wants Eddie to stop looking at him like he’s an unrecognisable alien. His theory has been proven right. One secret and Eddie is suddenly skirting around him, like touching Buck would leave him blistered and burnt. He can’t stop turning away mouth curled like he’s just tasted something bitter and Buck wants to take it back. Wants to swallow everything he’s ever said and be a blank slate. He wants to carve away all the little pieces of himself that can’t be loved until he’s something real. Most of all, Buck wants to get off the floor. His leg is starting to cramp and his ass is probably going to be bruised with how long he’s been sitting here. He wants to get up and walk the yard or so to his bed, set an alarm for the morning and sleep the night through. Every time he thinks he’s going to do it, going to finally stop staring at the yellow shadows skipping across the wall, he moves a little and suddenly it feels like his bones turn to sand and start falling away inside his skin. Clogging up his veins and arteries. He hopes, for a second, that he doesn’t get another clot and then remembers that it’s all in his head.

He entertains the idea of leaving. He more than entertains it. He’s already sorted everything in his apartment into keep or throw categories in his head. He’s researched local charity collections for his clothes and furniture. He’s put aside the money to break his lease. He’s thought about where he might go. He’s written and printed a letter of resignation. He hasn’t decided yet though, so it sits in his bedside table drawer, unsigned. Maddie’s having a baby soon. A baby that part of him would very much like to meet, but a bigger part of him, the logical part knows that they’ll be better off without him. So, he should go. But it would break Maddie’s heart and there’s nothing more cruel than inflicting heartbreak on someone during such a pivotal time in their life. So, he should stay. She probably won’t even have time to think about Buck once the baby’s here, people always retreat into their lives when they have babies, don’t they? And they’d have Albert. So, maybe he could leave. It wouldn’t be that selfish. No. Everything Buck does is selfish. He knows. He is selfish and exhausting. Leaving them all would be selfish and exhausting, but staying and keeping his distance is surely just as selfish and exhausting. And loving them no longer feels like an option. He knows he’s loved, but believing it is a very different matter. God, he’s so tired, he just wants to go to bed.

His whole body is aching and on the verge of shaking. He thinks he shouldn’t be working on the few hours he spent asleep, curled up on the floor. Buck is downing cups of coffee like tequila shots.

“Buckeroo, that’s like your eighth cup and we’re not even half way through shift.” Hen says gently pulling the mug out of Buck’s hands. She tips it down the sink and replaces it with a glass of water.

Buck smiles sheepishly and starts gulping the water down.

“You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

“I just didn’t get much sleep last night is all.”

“Seems to me like you haven’t had _any_ sleep for a while.”

“Hen, I’m fine.”

“No, Buck, you are not.” She levels him with a glare that is somehow just as fond as it is reprimanding. “And, I don’t know what to say to make you talk to me, or anyone for that matter, because ever since your parents came to visit you’ve been putting walls up. I’m starting to think they’re impenetrable.”

Good, Buck thinks. They’re meant to be, even if that wasn’t supposed to be so glaringly obvious. Didn’t he say Hen would figure it out first?

“But, I’m not gonna stop trying.” She searches for eye contact and Buck gives it to her but his brain is miles away thinking about the letter in his drawer.

He should be wrapped in a blanket of warmth at her words. The knowledge that he has people in his corner who would fight for him. What comes of that when the thing he needs to fight is himself. He feels trapped. Like he’s being ground beneath a giant thumb. His voice is small and breathy when he thanks her.

“Go down to the bunks and get some sleep, kid.”

He finishes the glass of water and uses the silence to piece himself back together a bit. He chuckles in his usual manner.

“Don’t think I’m ever going to sleep again after all that coffee.”

She smiles but doesn’t look convinced.

“Well, try for me.”

Buck nods and heads downstairs despite the world growing heavier with each step he takes. By the time he reaches the bunks he feels like he’s wading through water and that’s not something he likes to be reminded of. He pushes himself to the bed furtherest from the door and buries himself under the covers. Every time his eyes drift closed his head fills with sloshing water and he can taste salt and blood on his tongue. He can feel himself being dragged backwards and down. He opens his eyes and keeps them carefully fixed on the slats of the bed above. He knows he’s not really keeping it together anymore. He can feel all his secrets chomping at the bit, filled with jealousy at not being the first to escape. They simmer dangerously close to the surface. Rising closer to his mouth with each sleepless night and skipped meal. His walls might be growing but he is crumbling behind them. He’s a house built on sand. He lies there and waits for a bell and feels impossibly heavy. His whole body has been lined with lead. He doesn’t know if he could even move. He’s so out of control of his body he doesn’t feel like he’s actually in it anymore. It’s not like people say, when they talk about floating above their body. He’s just not there. He’s his mind and his body is something else entirely separate. He’s aware of it. He has to be to feel this weighed down; to feel the way the muscles in his face are pulling down around his lips, as if they are melting and straining down to pool in his chin; but it's no longer part of him. If he were to look in a mirror now he’d be surprised to see a face attached his being. It doesn’t even hurt that much anymore. Just a distant itch in his chest.

No bell tolls marking his rescue, instead Chimney sticks his head around the door. Buck tries to focus on pretending to be asleep instead of the thought that normally Eddie would have come. Chimney doesn’t enter the room.

“If you’re awake, Cap’s cooked lunch.” He whispers into the room. Buck doesn’t move and he hears the door start to swing closed but it doesn’t click shut, “And, if you’re asleep, then this’ll be a lot easier to say. I’m sorry. I wish I knew what to do because I hate seeing you like this. I need you to know that I’m here for you, Buck.”

He waits for another few seconds to see if Buck is really asleep before shutting the door as quietly as he can. His words swirl around Bucks head, getting faster and faster until they create a whirlpool with the phrase ‘I hate seeing you like this’ in the very center. It’s still echoing around when he gets up twenty minutes later no less exhausted but more determined to put up a front. Bobby presents him with a plate they saved and he has to fight a gag with each mouthful. He sees it now. Chim has woken him up and he can see it everywhere. He’s not convincing anyone and they all hate seeing him like this. They’re all looking at him with those big sorrow-filled eyes, even Eddie - when he looks at Buck at all. They’re looking at him like they think they should be helping him. Like they could help him, and they’re hurt because they’re not. They don’t even realise he can’t be helped. That it’s so far beyond them. His pain is infectious. He had suspected as much as a child. That his misery was poisoning his parents. Now, he thinks it was probably the other way around but that doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of it too. He’s become a problem. Again.

He can’t unsee it. He spends the entirety of his shift analysing every move they make. Each frown they pass between them. The way Cap rubs his brows, shoulders slumped in defeat when Buck can’t make his laugh sound real enough. How Eddie sits next to Hen at the table now and she squeezes his shoulders sympathetically when he sits down. He’s dragging them out with him, further and further from the shore and their peace of mind. He can’t get out of the station fast enough. He can’t physically put enough space between himself and these people.

The sweat beading on his back is starting to make him feel cold but he doesn’t want to turn on his back and taint the sheets. He promised himself he wouldn’t sleep here too much. He doesn’t want to cross any lines.

“Are you okay, Bucky?”

He reaches tipping point.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“I’m just a bit drunk. I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I mean, you know that.”

Fuck Cory’s sheets. Buck rolls over. Cory’s not looking at him, he’s looking up at the ceiling.

“We don’t do this. It’s just sex.”

“Sure, okay. But, we were friends first. And, even if I didn’t care, which I do, it’s kind of a mood killer wondering if you’re trying to drink yourself to death every time.”

“I’m not exactly drinking alone.”

“I know I’m not the poster child for sobriety, but it’s starting to seem less like a dodgy coping mechanism and more like a crutch.”

“It’s your alcohol and your drugs.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” He says propping himself up on a elbow and looking down at Buck, “I really enjoy this, but I feel like maybe I’ve dragged you down a dark path.”

Buck sits up abruptly and their heads collide.

“Ow!”

“It’s my life, Cory. You haven’t _dragged_ me anywhere. I’ve made my decisions all by myself.”

Still clutching his forehead Cory scowls, “Well, I feel like I’m enabling you or something. You’re nose is bleeding by the way.”

Buck wipes at his nose with his wrist only to feel a new line drip down into his mouth almost immediately.

“I’m perfectly capable of enabling myself.”

Cory sighs, “I don’t think I can do this anymore. It’s one thing watching you self-destruct but it’s another to actively help you. I’m sorry, Bucky.”

Buck ignores his bleeding nose. Rolling off the mattress and dressing himself. His anger making his hands miss buttons and slip off zippers. Cory’s scrambling across the bed after him.

“I’m sorry! Please stay or at least let me call one of your friends to make sure you get home safe.”

Buck practically growls at him while trying for the third time to get his shoe on.

“Forget I said anything, okay?”

Finally dressed Buck spins for the door.

“Buck…” Cory calls after him.

Buck storms through the apartment ignorant of the fact that it’s three in the morning and he’s probably waking not only Cory’s roommates but everyone on the floor below.

“Buck, I just meant… I want you to get some help. You deserve to be happy.”

Every word Cory stays leaves a hole in Buck, draining him of anger so there’s more room for guilt. He’s empty and full at the same time. He turns at the door and Cory is hovering behind him eyes big and just like everyone at the station.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry for dragging you into all my shit.”

Cory doesn’t lose any of the tension in his body. He steps forward, “Please stay until the morning. I’m worried you’re gonna do something stupid.”

Buck shudders.

“I’m fine, Cory. I’m just going to go home.”

He gets in his car and he really shouldn’t be driving. He’s responded to so many calls that started out like this. Somehow, he makes it home in one piece. He tiptoes in, trying his hardest not to wake Albert as he ascends the stairs. He goes straight to his bedside drawer and signs the letter. He lies next to it on the bed the whole night. He thinks he even sleeps a little.

He breathes a little easier, his step a little lighter just knowing that the paper is in his bag. He slides it carefully into his locker. He’ll hand it in at the end of shift, when everyone else has left to avoid drama. His skin thrums all day, alternating between excitement and anxiety. Until there’s only four hours left on their shift and Buck is suddenly washed with calm. He’s so calm he feels as if he's ascending this plane. It’s then that the bell goes. His system floods with adrenaline once more and it shoves him back inside himself. He sits in the truck and his side feels cold where Eddie is usually pressed against him, but hasn’t been since Buck came out. The gap between them seems chasmic despite the size of the truck. That doesn’t matter anymore. Not after today. He focuses back on Bobby telling them they’re going in as relief on a five alarm fire. Buck just prays they don’t end up working overtime.


	7. Chapter 7

They arrive at the scene and it’s chaos. Bobby splits him and Eddie up and Buck feels himself panic for a second, he’s not sure he trusts himself here without Eddie by his side. He follows Hen and Chimney anyway, taking charge the second he’s through the door because whatever else he might or might not be, Buck is a damn good firefighter. Then Bobby and Eddie are two guys down and he’s saying he needs to go find them.

“You’re not wrong, Buckeroo.” The silent ‘but I don’t like it’ fills the air around them for a second before he breaks off.

His training tells him not to take the walkway but that instinct in him to find a way to make the pain his own again is dug more deeply into him than any training could ever be. He makes it over with no consequences and can only be disappointed for a second before he’s distracted by a voice. The guy’s funny, and if Buck were more himself he’d really appreciate that right about now. He’d probably even waste some of his oxygen laughing. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s not really himself. The walkway worked last time so chances are it’ll work this time. It doesn’t and the guy goes down. So does Buck. His heart rate picks up at the anticipation of his landing. Of the reverberating pain he’s sure to feel. He can almost feel it already, nerve endings all alight in preparation. It never comes. He swings into a vat and is out before he can even register the contact.

He can’t catch his breath, it burns on the way in and somehow, even more on the way out. He sits, unable to hold himself up anymore. His legs are too shaky. If they weren’t he’d probably try to make a run for it while his dad is busy pacing. He stops and leaning across the back of the dining room chair, rests his head on his hands. He’s undone his bowtie at some point without Evan noticing. Now he’s found stillness it seems an eternity before he moves again. He raises his head, only enough to look at Evan across the table.

“Will you please say something?”

He hears his voice and it takes him a second to recognise it as his own, “Where’s mom?”

Evan’s never seen his father cry before, but there are definitely tears brimming his father’s eyes and he definitely sees them before they’re hurriedly wiped away.

“She and the other wives went out for a drink.”

They lapse into more tense quietness. Evan can almost see it rippling around him like when the curb looks wavy in the summer heat. 

“Please talk to me, Evan?”

“Mom, can never know about this.” His voice responds before he can even register that he’s thought it.

“Evan, this is serious…” His father argues but they both know he’s right.

“Maddie can’t know either.”

“Evan! I should take you to… you, we need-” he sighs in frustration, tears building up again, “You can’t expect me to ignore this.”

“Why not? It’s what you do best. I’m going to bed.”

“Evan. Evan!”

Evan stands and ignores the wobbly note in his fathers voice, walking into the darkened hallway.

“ _Buck!”_

That’s not right.

_“Firefighter Buckley, report!”_

Buck opens his eyes and he can’t catch his breath. It burns on the way in and somehow, even more on the way out. He sits, taking in the flames and smoke through his mask. His head is throbbing. The bruise on his nose must have developed by now but surely it wouldn’t cause a headache this bad? He turns when he hears a grunt. Right. The guy. The walkway. He ignores the buzz of his radio in his ear and turns his attention to the vat crushing the man. He’s no use, he can’t lift it.

“ _Buck, answer me!”_ That’s Eddie. Eddie who now hates him for a reason that Buck can’t remember.

“Eddie?”

“ _Buck!”_ Is all Eddie can say before Bobby cuts in,

_“Buck, you need to evacuate. Now.”_

“I’m with the last victim but we’re trapped.”

“ _Copy. We’re coming to you. Sit tight, kid.”_

“Not a problem, Cap.”

Buck’s head is really starting to hurt. On an insane level. He can’t focus on that though because the guy is getting worse. Buck should really be able to remember his name but it floats just out of reach. He hands his mask over because this man (whoever he is) is going to live if it’s the last thing Buck does. It will be the last thing you do, he thinks and he knows there’s some truth to it but he can’t remember why. It takes him a minute to figure out the logistics, longer than it should, but he finds a rope and he starts pulling. He hears a cry peel from his lips filled with more emotion than he thought himself still capable of feeling. And then there are hands. Buck loses himself for a bit after that. Adrenaline crash he tells himself. He knows that Eddie leads him out of the building, one hand on his back the other on his chest. He sits him down on the step of the ambulance and Hen starts fluttering around him. He’s fine, he just can’t breathe properly and he hasn’t slept in forever. They can only help him with one of those things. Bobby stands guard. Hen steps back and he’s left with an oxygen tank and a father. The good one. The better one. Buck can feel the words rolling around on his tongue. He almost gave up. He wants to tell them but there’s a voice of a sixteen year old in his head telling him that they can never know about that. Bobby and Hen pingpong words about how they care between them, about how they knew Buck would never leave a man behind and as much as Buck should be listening he can only sit by and spectate. It makes him think about his locker. Why that is relevant, Buck doesn’t know.

Athena comes running and he hasn’t seen her since that day he disappeared. He wants to cry. She hugs him tight and breathes into his hair a little bit.

“I know scaring the life outta me is what you do best, Buck, but you’ve got to stop now, boy.”

“I’ll stop, Athena.” He wants to get back to his locker.

Hen says he’s okay enough to go back to the station and wash up before he gets checked out. Eddie is pressed against his side in the truck, just like old times. He spends the whole journey openly staring at Buck and it’s such a stark contrast to a few hours ago it makes Buck’s head spin. That’s definitely what’s causing the inside of the truck to flick in and out of focus. They get out and Buck’s legs almost buckle when his feet hit solid ground but he catches himself. He’s so tired.

“Hit the showers everyone.” Cap calls.

Buck finds himself alone in the locker room. He’s staring at his locker and he knows he needs to open it. There’s something important in there but he can’t remember what. His head is killing him. He thinks it might actually be trying to kill him. His knees give out and he collapses onto the bench opposite his locker.

*

Bobby comes out of the showers ready to drive Buck to the hospital, expecting Buck to be ready too. Buck is still sitting in the locker room covered in soot.

“Come on, Buck, you smell like a barbecue. I know you’re tired but you need to shower.” He calls as he enters the room.

Buck doesn’t stop staring at his locker for a second.

“Buck?”

Bobby’s heart is beating out of his chest. Buck was fine. They’d checked him on the scene. A bit of smoke inhalation and exhaustion but he was fine. Bobby comes skidding to a stop in front of the boy.

“Buck?” He taps the side of Buck’s face but it does nothing to snap him out of the glassy-eyed staring contest he has going on with his locker.

“Come on, Buck.” He begs softly coming to kneel in front of him.

Just as Bobby cups Buck’s face in his hands, Buck’s nose starts dripping blood onto the floor between Bobby’s knees. He shakes him a little without even meaning to. Buck finally seems to look at him.

“Drop it, Dad. We both know how mom would react if she found out.” He slurs before his head lolls in Bobby’s hands.

“Hen!” Bobby shouts, scooting closer to support Buck’s head better.

The others come running.

“Cap?” Eddie says careening into the room.

“Left pupil’s blown, disorientated, his nose is bleeding and pulse is erratic.” Bobby says trying his hardest not to panic.

He’s trying to focus on the situation, on helping Buck, but being called ‘dad’ has sent his head spinning, ricocheting off memories and unacknowledged fantasies alike. Hen runs to get a med bag. Chimney finds a knot behind his ear. The next shift drives Buck and Eddie in the ambulance. Bobby stays and passes over to the next shift’s captain in record speed. He grabs Buck’s bag from his locker for the change of clothes if nothing else.

Eddie’s pacing the corner of the waiting room and Hen has her head in her hands, Chimney is doing his best to console her but he keeps looking at the entrance. He’s the first to spot Bobby but he’s obviously not who he’s waiting for. Bobby takes Eddie by the shoulders and plants him in the chair next to Hen before taking his own seat.

“How was he?” He asks, voice is hoarse and scratchy.

“Not good.” Is all Eddie says before he thumps his head against the wall and squeezes his eyes tightly closed.

“I called Maddie. She’s on her way.”

“Good.”

He nods and as he does he catches the smear of red on the knee of his pants. From Buck’s nose, his brain supplies. He stares at it until his eyes burn.

“Cap?”

His head whips up to catch Chimney’s expectant expression, “Sorry?”

“Have you called Athena?”

Bobby shakes his head, looking at the patch of blood once more.

“Should you?” Chimney presses.

Bobby covers the offending mark with his hand to force himself to focus, he thanks Chim and steps outside to call Athena.

_“Hey, Baby. Buck get the all clear?”_

Bobby feels his words choke him.

_“Bobby?”_

“He must have hit his head.” It’s the best his brain can come up with whilst playing the image of Buck with a blank stare and bleeding nose on a loop.

_“LA General?”_

He makes a grunt of agreement.

_“I’ve still got a couple hours on my shift but I’ll see what I can do. You stay strong for our boy now, Bobby.”_

He tells her he loves her and he’s not sure he’s ever meant it more.


	8. Chapter 8

His mom hated it when he left his bike on the lawn. It was usually the match in the powder barrel. So, even though he was inevitably late enough in the mornings that waiting for the garage doors was the difference between a close shave and a tardy slip, he’d always put it away.

*

He doesn’t think he can do this again. Not when it’s so familiar. Eddie thinks he’s seen enough head injuries to last him two life times. Buck can’t die. Not when they’re like this, with so much unsaid between them and it’s all too similar. His foot is touching Buck’s duffel where Bobby put it down and he can’t stop thinking about being handed a neatly folded pile of belongings. Can’t stop thinking about the fact that it’s possible to file a person down to a pile of clothes and things that fit in two hands. It shouldn’t be physically possible to reduce a person who you love so, so much into two hands. His hands are shaking too much to bare that load. And he does. He does love Buck. It’s hard not to. In fact, it’s easy. Disarmingly so. He’d loved Buck from pretty much the first conversation they’d had, when he’d told Eddie his “problem” and the first thing that had popped into Eddie’s head was _oh, that’s adorable._ It’s not, however, easy to be in love with Buck. That much Eddie knows. He thinks, he doesn’t know, that maybe that has more to do with him than Buck. The lawsuit had hurt. It had hurt so much and Eddie couldn’t understand why. And he couldn’t forgive himself for hurting more over that than Shannon. It had made him so angry because that was pretty fucked up - to be more upset about not being able to make a phone call than his dead wife. It didn’t fully click until they were living together; actually living together instead of just spreading themselves between each other’s homes. It was a completely mundane moment, Buck wasn’t even there, he’d walked past Chimney on the phone to Maddie, and thought at least I don’t have be separated from Christopher _and_ Buck, and then it clicked. One thought and nearly three years of feelings suddenly made sense because he loved Buck the way Chimney loved Maddie, and Hen loved Karen, and Bobby love Athena, and he loved Shannon. After that Eddie had, well, Eddie had been selfish.

He’d been suddenly aware of lines they were teetering on the edge of. The co-parenting, the sweatshirts with ambiguous ownership, the toothbrushes left in bathrooms, the personal space (or lack there of), all of it. He’d looked at them from afar and realised they were pushing the boat. They were still friends, but only just. They would always be just friends, he was sure because Eddie’s would know if Buck loved him back. Buck who loves loudly and lives fearlessly is not the kind for silent pining. Eddie had excepted that, but he couldn’t help but take some liberties, couldn’t help but suck Buck a little further in his and Chris’ world. Crossed a few lines out of something treacherously close to spite. Then Buck’s parents had come to town and suddenly Eddie didn’t know Buck like the back of his hand anymore. Buck had closed shutters around himself and Eddie could no longer tell real from fake. Buck had disappeared and refused to talk to him and then he’d seemed fine, but Eddie knew it had to be fake. He looked, he searched for a smile that didn’t reach his eyes or a joke that seemed too planned out and the harder he looked the less he could find. Something still _felt_ off but Eddie began to wonder if he was fishing. If all this worry was coming from his own fear. Fear that Buck didn’t need him. He’d nearly convinced himself of it but then Buck started to slip. Coming to work with dark circles under his eyes and a grey complexion. Moving stiffly on calls, drinking too much coffee, popping aspirin when he thought no one was looking. Eddie doubled down on his efforts to discover what was wrong only to find a girlfriend. He let jealously rule over his body for a day or two. Then the guilt set in, because he’d thought that his liberties weren’t hurting anyone but obviously they were. He’d put Buck in an uncomfortable position but worse than that he hadn’t thought about Chris. He knew Buck would do anything for Christopher but Eddie was essentially making him choose between them or a love life. Buck had chosen and Chris ended up losing out. So, even though it seemed completely fruitless, he decided to try and move on, be the bigger man.

The girlfriend turned out to be a boyfriend and all Eddie’s resolutions went out the window. Buck liked men, not just this man, men. But, not Eddie. He couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried, come to terms with the unfairness of it. Eddie, who had thought loving a man was inconceivable until he was doing it, was in love with someone he _could_ be with. He’d built himself a soft landing on the idea that Buck was straight and it had been ripped out from under him by an unreasonably attractive stranger. Of course Buck would be with someone who looked like _that._ Eddie couldn’t help but feel betrayed no matter how hard he tried to bludgeon it away with rationality. He chose to be selfish again. To steer clear of him just to save face. Even when Buck looked dead on his feet and Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him smile, and had he always been that skinny? Every time he started to say something his fear smothered him up in an image of him weeping at Buck’s feet, begging to know why he didn’t just love him back. And now, he’s going to lose him.

He sits on his hands to stop himself from punching the wall. Or himself. He doesn’t stop even when they’ve gone numb or Maddie arrives and everyone else gets up to hug her. He doesn’t move them when May appears a little while later and holds out a tray of coffees from him to choose from. He’s going to have to go home to his son and tell him that another person they love is dead. One day, when Chris is a bit older, he’ll ask Eddie about it all. He’ll ask why Buck was so absent in the weeks leading up to his death and Eddie will have to admit it’s because he’s a coward who took more than Buck had to give. He will look Chris in the eye and say out loud that he was too jealous to reach out and stop Buck from spiralling. He knows Buck is going to die.

“It’s Buck. He’s going to be fine. He’s a fighter.” Chimney says to comfort Maddie.

Eddie wants to laugh. He wants Chimney’s words to be true, with every fibre of his soul, he does. He’d do just about anything for the chance to grovel at Buck’s feet. To tell him he loves him and face the inevitable rejection because at least Buck would be alive even if he’s not around. But they aren’t. They aren’t true. Buck’s been fighting since Eddie met him; for his whole life as far as Eddie can make out, but if the army taught him one thing it’s that no one can fight forever. Eddie thinks about the listless set of Buck’s face the last few weeks. He thinks about how weird Buck had been acting today. How relieved and relaxed he’d seemed until each time the bell rang and his face would drop, like he was glitching. And he knows. He knows that Buck is done fighting.

*

She’d been so happy. The happiest he’d seen her in years. At least since Maddie left home. He’d been unsure about hiring Carson, not keen on having young blood in the company, but boy was he glad they had now. His wife was young and sweet and probably very lonely and although the suggestion the women should find a bar for cocktails was borderline inappropriate, Philip was glad she was green enough to make it. He’d driven home from the Henderson’s smiling at the memory of his wife’s startled laugh. He backed into the driveway, leaving the car ready should she call needing to be picked up. He made his way to the front door with a skip in his step. He only noticed the bike on the lawn when he turned to close the door behind him. He paused for a second, thinking again of his wife’s laugh, then closed the door anyway.

*

She gnaws at a hangnail, ignoring the slight tremor in her hand. The baby keeps kicking and her mother’s words about high risk pregnancies keep bouncing around in-between thoughts of Buck. She had hoped they were done being here. She’d thought that the next time they’d be in a hospital it would be her in a delivery room and Buck waiting outside barely able to contain his excitement. Not this. Her heart hurts. Literally. Burning with worry like it’s trying to eat itself. Eat your heart out, Maddie. The worst part is she doesn’t know if he’s going to want to see her; after all this _when_ he’s been treated and she’s allowed into his room whether he’s going to let her hold his hand or not. She knows that she brought this on herself. That she treated him like a child when she shouldn’t have and she regrets it more than anything. But the thing is, her brain malfunctions when it comes to Evan. She left when he was thirteen and saw him only twice when he was eighteen, she missed the part where he became an adult. She knows she brought that on herself too. Sometimes her brain can’t compute the gap. Can’t make the man she sees before her make sense with the kid in her head, or the young man from the postcards. It’s like she can see all these holes in him and she doesn’t know if they’re on her side or his or what to fill them with. Every now and then something will happen and she’ll know what how he’s going to react because she knows him, and then he doesn’t. He reacts in a way she can’t figure out, no matter how she adds it up she can’t get two and two to make four. It’s always a stark reminder of how much she’s missed and she feels guilt blossom in her stomach every time. So, she shoves it away instead of updating her idea of him.

She never meant to make him feel so insignificant. She really was trying to protect him. Her mistakes hurt so much she wanted them to be lessons enough for them both. She made them so he didn’t have to. She knows now that life doesn’t work that way. He has to make his own mistakes or he’s not really living. She thinks about how hard he’s been pushing her away and the way Chimney’s been describing him at work and wonders if he is really living now. Whoah, not a good train of thought to head down now. He’s alive. He’s going to stay that way. She wants to wrap him in bubble wrap. He must have had his fill of accidents and bad luck by now. When she was younger she’d thought that maybe he did it on purpose. Only once. When she’d be cleaning out the cuts on his back after he’d tried to do a backflip off the back deck. She only questioned it because he’d hurt himself doing the exact same thing before and surely he wouldn’t have done it again unless he wanted to get hurt. It made sense in a stomach turning way. She knew how desperate for attention their parent’s silence could make you. Then she’d looked up and caught his puffy, tear-filled eyes in the mirror and dismissed the idea completely. He just didn’t know when to stop. When to give up.

“Would you have stayed in there?” She whispers to Chimney.

His face scrunches up in thought for a second and it’s almost an answer in itself because Buck wouldn’t have to think about it.

“If I’d already found the victim when the evacuation order was given I wouldn’t be able to leave them behind.” He whispers back.

Maddie nods to herself and brings the thumb with the hangnail back up to her lips. Chim intercepts, putting her hands in his own.

“It’s Buck. He’s going to be fine. He’s a fighter.” He says, loud enough for everyone to hear. He’s not just saying it for her.

_I walked through fire every day of my life._

He’s a fighter alright. She just wishes he didn’t have to be. She remembers holding him as a baby for the first time. Daniel had begged and begged to let them meet him. He’d even threatened to break out of the peds ward. Their parents had brought him up after he’d been officially released. Maddie got to hold him first, he’d looked up at her with these giant eyes and fussed his tongue. Maddie’s heart had fluttered.

“What’s wrong with his eye?”

“What?” Daniel had demanded trying to lean over the edge of his bed to look.

“Nothing’s wrong with his eye. It’s a birthmark.” Their mother said pushing Daniel back into bed.

“Can I hold him now, please?” He batted his eyelash-less eyes.

The Buckley parents exchanged a look before Philip collected Evan out of Maddie’s arms, swaddling him just a bit tighter before placing him in Daniel’s arms. His smile engulfed his face.

“He’s so small.” He said in enraptured awe. Evan squirmed and gurgled. Another smile graced Daniel’s lips and then vanished. Everyone in the room tensed. Margaret already reaching for an emison basin when Daniel looked up, eyes huge and pooled with guilt, “He’s too small, dad.”

Maddie only realises she’s crying when Chimney’s hands leave hers to wipe away the tears. She wants to call her dad, to hear him say “Don’t worry, he’s tough enough.” She wants to have unwavering faith in those words. But she’s going to wait. Wait for Buck.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, this chapter deals with some heavy stuff but I've put the trigger warning in the notes at the end because they're pretty major spoilers, so please read carefully and check them if you need to!! 
> 
> Also just wanted to say thank you all for reading and supporting :)

All the lights were turned off which meant that Evan was probably out. It was past his curfew, but Evan had yet to show any regard for that particular rule, it seemed to be a hill he was willing to die on. The house was eerily quiet without Evan filling it up. He wanted to call out and check but stopped himself on the off chance that he was upstairs sleeping. Evan didn’t sleep enough these days. He allowed himself to listen at Evan’s door for signs of life, something he wouldn’t do if he weren’t ninety percent sure the house was in fact empty. He couldn’t hear anything, but Evan had always been deceptively quiet when he wanted to be. He turned away from the door, flicking the hallway light on just in case. He headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. He wanted to be awake when Margaret needed him. He stopped mug almost all the way to his lips, the bike nagging on his mind. He put his cup back on the counter with a heavy sigh and walked back to the front door, why would Evan leave it out? It just didn’t make sense.

*

The anticipation is making her feel sick. Actually, it’s the guilt. How could she have missed it? Her paramedic brain supplies a perfectly reasonable answer: delayed symptoms - not uncommon with head injuries, knots are harder to find when there’s no bleeding, the patient had only complained of chest pains. She can’t accept that though. The _patient_ has a complex and extensive medical history including both head injuries and blood thinners, not to mention a habit of down playing or outright hiding injuries. She knows better. With Buck’s luck she should have shoved him into the first ambulance she saw and taken him straight to hospital. She knows that, she had even considered it but he had looked so tired and miserable sitting in the back of the ambulance that she dismissed it. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to trust her instincts after this. She won’t be able to if she looses Buck. Forget not being able to forgive herself, she doesn’t think she cope with anything if she Buck. She’d promised herself the day we walked into the station, doe eyed and yet somehow cocky at the same time, that she wouldn’t care too much. It’s dangerous to care too much about probies and besides, she thought it was going to be easy - he was obviously and asshole frat boy, probably homophobic. He wasn’t and that was the first surprise, she’d mentioned her wife his eyes had lit up in a way that only makes sense now. The second was when he’d bound into the station and with a blinding smile handed her a lego helicopter kit.

“I saw it and thought Denny would like it. I know you said he was into airplanes but trust me helicopters are cooler.”

She’d stared at him blankly. He'd never met Denny and she couldn't even remember mentioning his love for airplanes. So, the kid obviously wasn’t an asshole, sure, he had some bad habits to break like sleeping with anything that had a pulse and trying to get himself killed on every other call, but he was a total sweetheart. She let herself care. Mistake. Big mistake; because now she’s sitting in a hospital waiting room (again) fighting to just breathe. The last few weeks have been undeniably bleak, Buck has been floating around the edges of her life like a ghost. She doesn’t want to imagine what it would be like without him. She’s done it plenty of times before and it’s never good. They were the same, she and Buck. They had to create their own families. Of course Hen had Karen and Denny, and now Nia, but her side of the family was lacking. Karen has a whole bunch of siblings and though Hen is friends with them they aren’t hers.The 118 had fixed that. Buck had fixed that. He was her own. She’d even been a bit jealous of Maddie when she showed up, embarrassing as it is to admit. She didn’t have to be for long because Buck had love enough for both of them. It kind of turned out to be a gift because she saw so much of his relationship with Maddie in their own and she knew she didn’t have to question whether he felt the same way about her. She could not cost them all Buck.

“Maddie Buckley?” A doctor calls. Hen doesn’t understand how she didn’t see her, she’s been watching the doors this whole time.

Maddie jumps up and the doctor approaches taking in the size of the group waiting with what Henlikes to think is an impressed eyebrow.

“Shall we go somewhere more private?”

Maddie looks at the people clustered around her and shakes her head.

“Mr Buckley has a small skull fracture and a severe concussion which has caused some localised swelling of his brain.”

Hen watches Bobby stumble back into his seat out of the corner of her eye. She missed a whole ass skull fracture.

“He’s still unconscious and we have him on medication to reduce the swelling. We're monitoring him carefully. Head injuries can be tricky so we won’t know the full effect of his injury until he’s awake but his reflexes are already improving from when he came in, which is a good thing.”

Her body is telling her to heave a sigh of relief, but she can’t. If anything her anxiety increases tenfold. They’ve had good news about Buck’s health before only for it to spew blood all over them. Hen’s not going to celebrate prematurely. Not again. It hurts to much. It’s like getting off a rollercoaster, relishing in that calm of it finally being over and then the ground just disappears from under you and you’re not equipped to deal with the adrenaline anymore.

*

The bike was a mistake. He’d only remembered it when it was too late to go back and get it. He didn’t like to think how it might be interpreted. Didn’t want them to think it was a ‘fuck you’ as opposed to a moment of determined mindlessness. He hadn’t really done any of this the right way. Typical.

*

May sat alone waiting for her mother. The other’s had all gone up to the ICU to take turns seeing Buck. She’d told Bobby that it would be better if she was there to greet mom and tell her gently in person than to tell her over the phone and he’d agreed. It wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t the whole truth. The truth is May’s scared. She shouldn’t be because this whole thing is kinda pretty much her job, but she doesn’t think she’s ready to see Buck like this. She’s a little bit angry and she can’t tell if she’s angry at Buck for not being there for her or at herself for not being there for Buck. She’s heard her parents hushed conversations about him in the kitchen and she’s become hyper aware of the change in tone of his texts, when he replies at all. She knows she could’ve tried harder but the thing is May’s the older sibling, always has been, until Buck came into her life. Then, she finally got to be the one that got looked after. It felt so good. She’d let Buck take a load off her shoulders and she never really stopped to think where he’d put it. It’s only really dawning on her now that he kept it and bore it himself. She feels like a child again. She wants to be wrapped in his warm, reassuring arms. That only makes her feel guiltier.

It’s stupid. Stupid and childish and she can already feel a blush heating up her cheeks, but the temptation is too strong. She opens the duffel at her feet and fishes out his sweatshirt. She’s already got her arms in the sleeves and is ducking to put it over her head when she sees the paper it must have pulled out. She lets the hoodie fall to her lap and reaches for the letter. She knows she shouldn’t, but it’s unfolded itself and she’s already reading it before she’s picked it up. Her mouth drops open and all the air in her lungs escapes. She probably looks comical. She looks around in disbelief, as if one of these complete strangers will turn around and explain. Say: don’t worry, dear, it’s just a joke. It’s only because she’s waiting for the granny with a bloodied towel wrapped around her arm to stop bickering with her husband and tell May what is going on that she sees her mother enter and head straight for the front desk. She glances back at the paper in her hand for a second before sliding it away in her own bag. She’s not even sure why. She shoves the sweatshirt back in the duffel as she stands and calls out, all comfort it promised has vanished.

She stands in the elevator tucked under her mother’s wing and silently lets the tears fall.

Buck was leaving them.

*

He wheeled the bike across the drive and tried his hardest not to think of his son. He had a painful habit of entertaining the what ifs whenever his world was a bit too quiet. What would their life be like if it had worked? Would they be better? What would have happened if he’d just thrown that bike out like he was supposed to? Would it have been enough to stop Evan from throwing himself at the world as hard as he could? He knew they were futile thoughts but that did nothing to get rid of them. He stood, tiredness seeping through him as he pushed his thoughts back to his coffee waiting for him inside, and pressed the key for the garage door. He was so busy trying to redirect his thoughts that he couldn’t even begin to piece it all together until the door was fully open. Even then it took another minute after he’d dropped the bike to understand it. For some reason, the first thing his brain registered was the lights. He’s pretty sure his heart stayed in that spot after he’d left it. That would explain the way his chest felt as he ran.

It seemed eternity before he reached Evan and the worst part is when he did, the boy looked so peaceful. His fingers didn’t feel attached to his body anymore with how hard they were tingling and they slipped off the key twice before he was able to turn the ignition off. Evan was blinking groggily up at him by the time he’d pulled himself out of the window and yanked the door open. Philip felt sick with relief.

“Dad?” He mumbled confused.

Philip clumsy batted away the earphones from his son’s ears and dug his hands around his shoulders and hauled.

“It’s okay, Evan. You’re okay.”

Evan kicked out, squirming and struggling sluggishly. The word ‘No’ tumbling from his mouth over and over again, tangling with his tears. It felt like he was carving out Philip's insides. He wrestled Evan out of the car, his legs knotted around each other taking them both down. He readjusted his arms around his son and half dragged half carried him away. He propped Evan up against the door step, his lips were still mouthing protests.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. Take a deep breath. Come on.”

They sat in the dark on the door step, Evan slumped against his shoulder as he murmured the word 'breathe' into his hair until it was meaningless. He waited until Evan’s breaths weren’t audibly shallow and then he shifted them, taking Evan’s head between his hands. All of his limbs felt numb.

“You’re okay.” Evan nodded and Philip mirrored him.

He wasn't sure how they got inside the house or why they ended up in the dining room. All he knew was that Evan had pulled away from him with startling strength in the hallway, insisting on walking by himself. He paced to try and keep up with the beating of his heart. How long had he been in there? They needed to go to the hospital. Evan had tried to… and all he cared about was Margaret. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t go after Evan even though he needed to. Every part of himself needed to but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe or cry or think. When he could, he found himself standing in the kitchen staring at a cold cup of coffee. He poured it down the sink, it sloshed from side to side as his hands shook. It was like he was sleep walking, fighting with his subconscious with every step he took towards the garage. He picked up the bike from the drive; placed it carefully against the wall; got into the car; shut the door; wound the window closed; took the key from the ignition; pocketed Evan's MP3 player; got out; locked the car; left the garage; stood on the drive and watched the doors close; hung the keys on the hooks by the door. He picked the phone up and held it. He held it so tightly that he thought the plastic would crack. He put the phone back down, instead he walked up the stairs, opened Evan’s door just a crack and sat against the wall, just listening to his son breathing and waiting for his wife to call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There's a suicide attempt at the end of this chapter, it's not graphic and I don't think it's that explicit but please be careful!


	10. Chapter 10

Buck looks bad, she supposes she should be used to it by now. Seeing him in a hospital bed. He doesn’t look as bad as when he was bleeding all over her yard but that’s not exactly reassuring. His skin is grey and a little waxy and there’s a little bit of blood crusted at the bottom of his nose that someone has missed. She squeezes May a little tighter against her. She can’t quite shake the sense of relief she’d felt seeing him sitting at the back of the ambulance rattled but alive. She needs to make it go away because there’s nothing to feel relieved about now, but it lingers. Taunting her. May seems to get stuck at the doorway and Athena wants to stay with her, let her take her time, soothe her fears, but she needs to be with Buck. She releases May, keeping their hands entwined for as long as she can while she steps forward. She brushes his hair back and lets her thumb linger on his forehead. He looks so young. So peaceful. A little too peaceful for comfort. She leans down to his ear and whispers:

“You listen to me, baby. You are not done here. You are not done with us. So, you keep fighting and we’ll be right here when you wake up. We clear?”

She almost expects him to give her a cheeky wink. Smile at her around the tubing with that smile at emanates all the good in the world. He doesn’t. She stands, had still in his hair, and tries to smile around the disappointment in her chest. At least the relief is gone. May has taken a few tentative steps forward. Athena motions her over and May comes around the other side of the bed. She just stares at him, and if Athena did’t know better she’d say she looks confused.

“You okay, baby?” She prods gently.

May looks up, “Could you… can I have a minute alone with him?”

Athena doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t want to move her hand until her boy is sitting up and apologising for pulling another stunt whilst trying not to let on how miserable being in hospital (again) makes him. May’s face tells her she needs this though so she nods and takes her hand away even though it makes her whole arm feel cold. She forces herself out of the room and is only mildly surprised when it makes the urge to cry triple.

May takes Buck’s hand in hers. It’s limp and colder than normal and she has to look at the ceiling before starting.

“Hi Buck. I found your resignation letter. I wasn’t snooping I swear I just, well, I wanted to wear your sweatshirt, which is stupid, and it fell out. I didn’t even mean to read it. I’m going to keep it safe for you, because I don’t think it would help anyone to know about it right now. You can have it back when you’re better. If you want it.”

She realises she’s waiting for him to say something but he’s not going to.

“I don’t know why you want to leave, I can make a pretty good guess. And, I want you to know that I get it, I know that feeling of just wanting to escape so bad that you’ll do anything. Even something that you know will hurt the people you love. I always kind of got the feeling that you understood that more than everyone else, so I probably don’t need to tell you that it gets better, because you already know that. I just, I want to remind you that it does and say I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you, I know you needed someone. So, I’m here now, even if it’s too late. Please wake up Buck.”

He doesn’t.

“Please can I see him, Dad. Please?” Christopher says over breakfast for the third day running.

“Chris-” Eddie sighs tiredly. He’s exhausted.

“Harry _and_ Denny have already been to see him.” Chris pouts.

Eddie pushes his plate away rubbing his brow.

“I don’t want him to think I don’t care.” Chris says quieter.

Eddie chokes on what is probably a sob.

“Okay. Okay. We’ll go after school,” Chris is already celebrating, “But Christopher, it’s not like the last times. He’s not… we don’t know when he’s going to wake up.” He keeps the if to himself.

The truth is Buck’s doctors think he should have woken up by now, the swelling has gone but he’s still unresponsive. Eddie knows head injuries are complicated, he knows that Buck’s been wearing himself into the ground recently and his body probably has more to recover from than just this. He also knows that in recovery sometimes people reach a point where it’s up to them whether they get better. He’s worried that if Buck has decided his life’s not worth fighting for Chris is going to blame himself for not being enough. Kind of like Eddie’s doing right now. Christopher’s right though, ever the optimist. Eddie can’t deny either of them this opportunity. Can’t deny Chris the chance to say goodbye if that’s what this is. Can’t deny Buck the chance to know just how loved he is, even if it doesn’t change the path he’s chosen.

“Okay, Mijo, he’s going to look different.”

“I know, dad.”

Eddie just swallows around the lump in his throat and squeezes Chris’ hand tighter as they near Buck’s door. Albert’s asleep in the chair when they enter, head rolled back and snoring slightly. Christopher falters looking at Buck.

“It’s okay. He’s okay.” Eddie whispers in his ear even though he knows it’s a lie.

He coughs and Albert’s flies awake, eyes turning hopefully towards Buck only to deflate before he turns to look at Eddie. Albert stands stiffly and excuses himself to go get some coffee. Christopher goes to the chair and Eddie stays at the foot of the bed, holding the railing with white knuckles.

“Hey, Bucky.” Christopher says quietly.

He talks softly about everything going on in his life, about going back to school and finally seeing his friends again and Eddie realises just how long it’s been since Buck was a constant in their life. He bows his head between his arms so his son won’t see the tears. He doesn’t understand how it’s all gone so wrong. He’s reaching forward to put his hand on Buck’s leg before he can even register himself doing it. It’s not enough. He can’t remember the last time he and Buck even hugged. This is tearing him apart.

“I miss you.” Chris says more forcefully than before and it makes Eddie physically jump. He shuffles off the chair and cups Buck’s chin in his hand. Eddie’s warning to be careful with his head dies on his lips as Chris says, “Please come home.” Then he’s crying.

Eddie scoops his son into his arms and it’s a testament to how distraught Christopher is because he’s a little too old to do this now. Eddie cradles his head the way he has since he was a baby andleaves. They bump into Albert in the hallway who says nothing about Eddie’s red rimmed eyes or his child’s quiet sobs, just puts a tray with a hot chocolate and a coffee into Eddie’s free hand and pats him on the shoulder.

Buck still does’t wake up.

Chimney misses his bed and his girlfriend. He hates how lax Buck’s hand is in his. He’s sick of the constant flashing and beeping and hissing.

He squeezes Buck’s hand, “I think you’ve made your point now, Buckeroo.”

All he gets in response is the steady beep from the monitor.

“You can open yours eyes. I won’t tell anyone one, not even Maddie! Just let me know you’re in there.”

He holds his breath and waits. Nothing happens.

His doctors start to get concerned again. Start telling them to prepare for less hopeful outcomes.

“Do you think I should call them?” She says it out of the blue in the middle of a conversation about breast pumps.

“Maddie-”

“I know. I know. But its been a week, Howie, and he should have woken up. I don’t know what to do. If I call them and he wakes up he’ll never forgive me. If I don’t call them and he doesn’t wake up, they won’t.”

“Do you think they’d come?” He asks carefully.

“If it was to say goodbye… I don’t know.”

Chimney tucks her head under his chin.

“We’re not there yet.”

“Yet…” She echos.

Bobby doesn’t like to be idle. He doesn’t want to unwind until the situation has a certifiable outcome. Sure, it’s tiring, but not as tiring as being unprepared. More unprepared. He’s practical. He’s dependable. Or at least he does his best to be. He buys a book on astronomy and reads it to Buck because it seems like the kind of thing the kid would research. He finds recipes he thinks Buck would like to cook when he’s better and marks them with little purple sticky notes. He changes the bedding in the guest bedroom and puts the blanket that Buck likes in there instead of the usual bedspread. Just in case Buck needs to be monitored _when_ he gets discharged. He buys a dimmer light fixture for the room and Michael helps him install it. For if he’s sensitive to light. Then he buys a pack of 50 ice-packs and puts them in the bottom drawer of the guest room medicine cabinet. That one might be overkill, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. He researches head injuries, specifically temporal lobe damage. It doesn’t help, it actually terrifies him but he can’t seem to stop. He tells Buck everything he learns because all though it’s morbid and it makes his skin crawl he thinks that Buck would like to know. He’d probably be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed.

The one thing he doesn’t do is unpack Buck’s duffel. It sits under his hospital bed. Bobby knows it’s useless. If Buck does wake up and need a change of clothes he won’t want those ones, they’ve been sitting in a bag with his sneakers for a week and they’ll need a wash. He should wash them. He just has this feeling. This feeling that the bag is not meant to be disturbed. So he leaves it untouched.

They’re on shift and it’s unnaturally quiet as they climb out of the engine. It has been since Buck’s accident. Chimney almost doesn’t notice the buzzing in his pocket he’s so focused on the empty space between them.

“You gonna answer that?” Eddie says, on edge.

“Huh?” He follows Eddie’s point to his pocket, “Oh.”

“ _He’s awake!”_

“He’s awake.” He repeats not even processing the words.

“He’s awake?” Someone clamours behind him.

He can’t hear what anyone’s saying over the rushing of blood in his ears.


	11. Chapter 11

She’s going through a baby name book, bouncing ideas off the walls of Buck’s room. Answering herself when he inevitably doesn’t. She's going to go crazy if she has to keep talking to herself.

“Howie likes Stella and I know it means star which is cute, but do you remember that girl in high school who stole my- oh.”

Buck is looking at her when she glances down. Looking at her with open eyes. All he does is blink, groggy and confused. She’s frozen in place under his gaze for a second.

“Buck?” She breathes out, as if too much noise him might send him away again.

He turns away from her with a muted groan. She flips into nurse mode automatically, checking his stats as she presses the call button.

“It’s okay, Buck.” She shushes, stroking his cheek. His eyes are closed again but not in sleep; she never thought she’d be so happy to see her brother in pain.

The next second she’s being ushered out of the room as it fills up with doctors and nurses. She sits for hours. She drinks three cups of tea (God, she wishes it was coffee) and waits. The 118 won’t be able to come for another eight hours at least. Carla appears and Maddie doesn’t even know if she called her or if someone else must’ve. She intertwines their hands, she’s not the most physically affectionate person and Carla is Buck’s friend much more than she is hers, but Maddie needs this right now. Eventually Buck’s doctor seeks them out. She tells them that Buck was pretty disorientated for a while, displaying obvious problems with his memory but that’s not unexpected with a concussion. In effect, he’s had his bell rung hard enough to shake everything a bit loose. A few more days with no more complications and he’ll be discharged. Maddie can’t get past the floating feeling that set in at the words, “He’s definitely back in the land of the living.” Buck is dozing in his room when she’s allowed back in, pumped full to the gills with pain meds, even so, there’s a crinkle of discomfort around his eyes.

He’s quieter. They’re warned that personality change is a possibility with the location of injury but it’s most likely the pain and disorientation. That offers little comfort to anyone because he hardly speaks and when he does it’s low and gravely and too slow for Buck. It’s better than silence. He doesn’t even put up a fight about being discharged into Bobby’s care despite his visible frustration. Bobby and Athena organise opposite shifts so there’s always someone home. It goes unmentioned in the group, they all know how much Buck hates feeling like an inconvenience. He sleeps a lot and they get into the habit of leaving his door open a crack so they can hear if he needs something.

Buck can’t tell what’s real. Most of the time he doesn’t even feel capable of thinking. His thoughts dangle above him like helium balloons trapped against a ceiling, too high up to retrieve but just short of reaching freedom. His head always feels full. When he can think, when the pain lets up enough that he can focus on something else, he’s not always in the right place. His brain keeps switching between Bobby’s kitchen and his childhood home. He never knows if he’s actually living a moment or just remembering it, it all feels the same. Sometimes he gets these moments of clarity and he knows exactly where he is and everything that’s happened leading up to being there. He becomes achingly aware of how little control he has over his life, his body, his brain, his words, his pain. It makes him feel sick, and he usually is - puking into the toilet moments later and the certainty of the moment is flushed down the toilet with his bile. Annoyance is constantly bubbling under his skin, making it’s way to the surface whenever his confusion gets distracted.

Bobby knew it would be difficult. He has first hand experience of Buck’s approach to recovery but he didn’t think it would be this hard. He was expecting the frustration, the anger, because as much as Buck might seek affection he has no idea what to do when it’s given to him. He’s so used to looking after himself he doesn’t know how to let someone else do it. Bobby was prepared for that. What he was not prepared for was how uncertain Buck would be. About everything; which cabinet the glasses live in, whether he ate breakfast, whether it’s 2008 or 2021. He’s not expecting to be constantly thrown snippets of conversations from the past and left to puzzle them out. He doesn’t expect it to hurt so much every time Buck asks him why he’s doing this or silently weeps for unknown reasons.

“Whoah, Buck. I’ve got you.” He says rushing to catch Buck under the elbow as he loses his step.

“I’m fine, just a bit dizzy.”

“Yeah? Let’s get you onto the couch.”

Buck lets himself be guided and sags in relief when he’s sitting.

“I’m gonna get you some water.” Bobby says patting him on the shoulder.

Buck thanks him as the glass is put in his hand. He takes a big gulp and Bobby takes it away, placing it on the coffee table well within Buck’s reach.

“Did you hide the car keys?”

“Why would I hide the car keys? You can’t drive remember, buddy?”

“I’m not going to do it again.” He insists defensively.

Bobby hangs his head for a second sucking in a steadying breath, “I believe you.”

Buck uncurls himself a little, readjusting to lean more heavily against the cushions.

“You with me again, Buck?” Bobby prods coming to kneel in front of him.

“Did I go somewhere?” He says settling his eyes on Bobby and boy, does he look tired.

“Yeah, kid, you did. Think you can manage some eggs for breakfast?”

“He told me to hit him today.” Athena says as Bobby climbs into bed. She feels her stomach begin to gnaw at her again just thinking about it.

He stops abruptly, one foot in the bed one out and the covers halfway up in the air.

“He was refusing to take his pain meds and I told him he had to, he said he wouldn’t. I told him he was being stubborn and he said ‘So hit me then. Go on.’”

Bobby finishes climbing into bed and Athena can see his brain working a hundred miles an hour. Hers had stopped completely. Just blanked out. She’d put the pills back away and sat next to him on the bed in silence, after a while he’d slumped into her lap and she had carded her hands through his hair until he woke up again hours later and took the pills without complaint.

“Was it a memory?” Bobby says after a long pause.

“Seemed like it, he hadn't been making much sense.” She tries to swallow away the sticky sensation in her throat, “Bobby, you don’t think…?”

“I don’t know what to think. Sometimes the way he says things makes me shudder but they’re completely out of context and I don’t even know if they’re real. The other day we had a whole conversation about him swimming with mermaids. I don’t know what to think.”

It’s hardly a satisfying answer but she doesn’t suppose that any explanation is going to be satisfactory.

He gets little pieces of himself back. The memories sound different now: a little more reverb than the real voices. It makes it easier. Only a bit, it does nothing to help sort the emotions that churn and bubble up in him. He tries to speak less, he doesn’t like to verbalise anything unless he’s completely certain he’s saying the right thing. He’s rarely certain of anything. He’s still fuzzy about the present day, especially around the accident. He likes it when Maddie’s there, he can tell she wants to say something but they both know he’s not on the same page, it’s entirely possible he’s not even reading the right book. But it’s better when she’s there because every time she goes away he forgets that she’s going to come back. Maddie leaves him, that’s what she does. Maddie loves him and she leaves anyway. He always has someone with him and it helps. Helps remind him he’s not back in that house. Not alone. He wakes up to find Harry sitting on the floor next to his bed doing his homework most afternoons, quietly talking him through what he’s doing because he knows Buck hates silence. Even in his sleep. It makes Buck’s lips turn up into a smile despite the fact it hurts a little. They fill the house with noise. Athena hums when she cooks, loud enough for Buck to hear from the couch but quiet enough not to irritate his headaches. May leaves her bedroom door open, her voice carrying as her she talks to her friends or listens to her music. Bobby recounts his day, voice a soft rumble, continuing after Buck’s obviously stopped listening.

Hen takes him to the park with Denny and Nia. The sound of children shouting leaves small cracks around the inside of his skull and the sunlight blinds him even with the sunglasses. He doesn’t say anything because it’s so nice to be in the real world again. It reminds him of the rain in Hershey. He used to love the rain. It made him feel small and peaceful. It was like looking up at the stars or a field that reached all the way to the horizon when it was completely silent. The way it quieted his mind and made him feel like he was such a small part of something so big that anything could be okay. They sit on a bench at the edge of the playground and Nia crawls from Hen’s lap onto his. He gives her his hand to play with.

“I’m sorry.” Hen says after a long while.

“What for?”

She stares at her child tugging on his fingers, “For not assessing you properly.”

“How?”

“What?”

“How was it not proper?”

“Well… I didn’t. I mean, I missed it.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I feel like it is. I shouldn’t have let you go off in the first place.”

Buck’s face sours, “That was never up to you.”

Hen looks away, “I know that. I didn’t mean it was. I just… God, Buck, I was so scared. I really thought I was going to lose you.” She doesn’t voice her concerns that she still might. That she’s terrified that his injury could be career ending. She’s scared that would be Buck-ending.

“I’m still here.”

She smiles and loops their arms together, “Thank God for that.”

He hums and it’s somehow a disquieting noise when surely it should be reassuring? He puts his head on her shoulder though and she’s able to shove the feeling away for later.

Buck insists on doing more when he has good days. Bobby doesn’t let him. Athena usually does. She knows it’s important to feel valuable sometimes. She says he can help them set the table for dinner. She should have known better than to turn her back. She was only helping May detangle a strand of hair from a button on the back of her sweater, even Buck couldn’t get into trouble that quickly. She learnt years ago not to underestimate his abilities. She supposes it’s a small mercy that she’d freed May’s hair before she jumped out of her skin at the sound of a smashing plate. They spin in unison just in time to see Buck already bending to pick up the shards of China.

“Buck, No!” Athena shouts on instinct.

It’s too late, he’s already got a jagged piece in his hand. Her shout only serves to make him flinch violently, hands clenching, body jolting back. It’s very quiet for a second. Then, the sound of a wet inhale.

“It’s okay, baby.” She soothes taking a step forward.

He cowers, pressing himself harder against the counter. She freezes again.

“Sorry, Buck,” She says raising her hands placatingly, her movement startling him more, “It’s okay. I’m not mad, I’m not going to hurt you. It’s just a plate. I’m going to stay right here, but can you put it down so you don’t cut yourself more?”

He lets it slip from his hand and skid to the side, a faraway look behind his terrified eyes.

“Good. Thank you, baby. Can May have a look at your hand?”

He shakes his head moving away again. Athena shares a panicked look with her daughter.

“Can I?” Harry says from somewhere behind her.

Buck doesn’t say no. He doesn’t back away as Harry approaches, taking the dish towel his sister hands him and pressing it against the bleeding palm. After a moment, Harry suggests that they sit at the table and Buck agrees. Athena could cry with pride as she watches her son lead him to the table. Athena could just cry. In fact, if she weren’t feeling quite so shell shocked she probably would be. She sweeps up the broken china and May finishes setting the table around the boys. Harry just sits with his hands around Buck’s talking to him about something Athena can’t quite hear over the ringing in her ears. She sees the moment he starts coming back to them, an embarrassed blush blooming from his cheeks spreading down under his shirt collar. He doesn’t let her near enough to check his hand though. Bobby’s already on his way home so they wait for him. He takes Buck into the bathroom, breaking the tension thrumming through the house. The pair return to the table with Buck’s hand wrapped. It doesn’t need stitches. The others keep up a forced conversation throughout dinner, Buck hates the quiet after all. She and Buck remain silent, both trying their hardest not to look at each other.

She doesn’t cry until she’s in the privacy of her bedroom, wrapped in her husband’s arms and trying to tell him what happened. They agree they should talk to him about it.

“Maybe just you should do it?”

“Athena-”

“He was scared of me, Bobby. Scared that I was going to do something to him.”

“He wasn’t scared of you.”

“You should have seen the way he looked at me.”

“Okay, we’ll do it together unless he gives the slightest indication that he doesn’t want you there.”

She nods, drawing herself straighter.

They don’t get the chance. The call comes in at three in the morning. Maddie’s in labor.


	12. Chapter 12

He can’t hold her. His tremors are too bad. He can’t hold a damn plate let alone a baby. Maddie wants him to try anyway, he can sit she says. He doesn’t reply just lifts his hand so she can see how pronounced they are, the way they run right up to his shoulders. She doesn’t try again after that. He’s happy. He thinks he is. The lights hurt his head and when the baby cries he feels like he’s just been smashed to pieces with a baseball bat. Bobby takes him out for some air. When they come back Chimney holds the now sleeping baby up so Buck can see her properly.

“Ara, meet your uncle Buck.”

“Ara.” Buck smiles down at her.

“It’s Korean,” Chim says, the excitement rolling off him.

Buck goes to his sister’s bedside.

“She’s beautiful.”

“She is, isn’t she?” Maddie beams through her exhaustion.

“I’m so proud of you, Mads.”

“Thank you, Buck. I wouldn’t be here without you.” She kisses his hands and he feels a few tears run down his face.

He feels like he’s always crying these days.

“I don’t know if you remember our fight about Mom and Dad? I would really like them to be here but I don’t want to impose them on you.”

He only sort of remembers their argument but he knows in every part of himself that he doesn’t want to be near them.

“I don’t want to see them, but I would never stop you. We don’t have to be the same. It’s okay, call them.”

“Thank you.” She says pressing their foreheads together.

Buck and Ara lay next to each other on the baby mat. He spins the toys hanging from the mobile above them making her gurgle. He’s still afraid to touch her. He’d read all about shaken baby syndrome when Maddie was in her second trimester and scraps of information drift through his mind each time he entertains the idea. Bobby’s stacking their refrigerator with tupperware.

“Really, Cap, you didn’t have to do all this.” Chimney says again.

“Please, if you think you’re going to have time to cook with a new born you’re more stupid than I thought.” Athena jokes from the table where she’s folding laundry with Maddie.

Bobby straightens forcing the refrigerator door closed, he turns and claps Chim on the shoulder.

“So listen, we were thinking it might be best if you didn’t say anything to your parents about Buck’s injury.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did we learn nothing about my ability to keep secrets last time?” Chim retorts.

“He’s been struggling a lot with his memory and he’s clearly processing some very difficult things from his past at the moment and we just,” He looks to Athena for support, “think seeing them might be triggering.”

“They’re right, Howie.” Maddie says quietly, looking out into the lounge where Buck and Ara play.

“We thought Buck might like to hang with us for the day, take his mind off things?” Eddie says and he feels like a teenager again, standing on the porch step being stared down by Athena.

He’s brought Chris with him this time so he can’t chicken out again. He knows that’s probably awful parenting and morally wrong on at least two levels, likely more. Turns out that Eddie’s not so great at learning from his mistakes because he’s still doesn’t know what to say to Buck. Still too scared to tell him anything remotely close to the truth. All he actually seems to have been able to take away from this whole thing is that Buck is not permanent. It sounds obvious because people aren’t, Eddie does know that, a little too well actually. Buck has this way of always being there; whenever you need him, also whenever you want him, or even think about wanting him, he’s there. It makes it scarily easy to forget that he’s only as dependable as any other human. Eddie finally fully realising Buck’s mortality should be a good thing, he should be able see how short life really is and be ready to declare his love come what may -he’d thought that sitting in that hospital waiting room. But, the longer he thought Buck wasn’t coming back, the more time his anxiety had to strangle the logic out of him. If he could lose Buck at any second to the big bad world, why would he risk losing him prematurely because he can’t get his heart think straight. Which would be all be well and good if he could figure out how to say anything other than, ‘I’m so in love with you I literally cannot function without you.’ But he can’t and so he’s been trapped in a revolving door of repressed emotions ever since Buck woke up. Eddie wonders if Athena can read his mind when she all but rolls her eyes at him before ushering them into the kitchen then going off in search of Buck.

“Eddie and Chris are here, you want to go over to their’s?” Athena asks casually.

Buck looks stricken for a second. He’s been avoiding Eddie, which has been surprisingly easy. Much easier than avoiding thinking about Eddie. He’s been dreading being around him, he has so little control of what he’s thinking and saying. The idea of accidentally confessing his feelings because his brain is too fucked up not to announce every thought that crosses his mind gives him a headache. He agrees though because something deep inside of him aches to be with Eddie and Chris again. Besides, he couldn’t get a worse headache than the one that’s been building around the knowledge that his parents are within a ten mile radius of him. He contentedly listens to Chris chatter in the back seat on the way home. The way to Eddie’s house.

“Do you wanna play a video game? Abuela got me some new ones, they’re really cool!”

Buck looks to Eddie helplessly, he’s never been able to say no to Christopher.

“Buck can’t play video games right now, bud. No screens.” Eddie says swooping in, ever his knight in shining armour. He puts the games back in the box they came from.

“Oh.” Chris says, his disappointment clear as day. Buck’s gut feels hollow. “Well can you play boardgames?”

“Buck?” Eddie prompts when Buck hasn’t replied after a minute.

“You know, superman, maybe if we play as a team I could manage.”

Eddie and Chris shoot him identical smiles and it makes Buck feel dizzy with affection. Or, maybe he’s just dizzy. Eddie somehow knows, because he knows him better than Buck knows himself. Buck supposes that’s probably true of just about everyone now. He gently prods Buck onto the couch fluffing the cushions around him. Buck swallows a contented smile. It’s almost painful to indulge himself in Eddie’s presence.

“I think we have _Who’s Who?_ we can play that.” Eddie says digging around while Chris settles himself next to Buck, pressing into his side. Buck puts his arm around him without thinking.

“I missed you.” Chris mutters into his chest.

“Missed you too, kid.”

“Thank you for getting better.”

Buck doesn’t know what to say and he really doesn’t want to cry here so he kisses the top of Chris’ head and clenches his wrapped hand until the tears retreat. He’s so sick of crying.

Chris and Buck win, well Chris wins because Buck hardly contributes, zoning out pretty quickly, content to just let the buzz of the Diaz boys swallow him up. Eddie probably let them win.

“Again?” Chris says eagerly.

“You know, Buck’s looking pretty tired why don’t we have some lunch first?”

“Sorry,” he slurs as he collapses back with a thud.

“It’s fine, Buck, I’ve always known you hated my cooking.” Eddie says catching him from behind. Buck can feel his words vibrate through him where Eddie’s pressed against him. The sensation causes another round.

“You think you’re done now?” Eddie asks after a while with no action. Buck is practically cradled in his arms as they lean against the bathtub.

Buck grumbles and mutters a pained maybe. Eddie readjusts the damp cloth against Buck’s forehead, wiping away the cooling sweat.

“How’s Cory doing with all this?” He says focusing on stopping his jealousy from leaching into his voice.

“He doesn’t know. We had a fight.”

“You guys broke up?”

“We were never together.”

“He wasn’t your boyfriend?”

Buck looks at him, eyes tired and screaming ’Seriously, you wanna talk about this now?’

“Sorry, bad timing.” Eddie says quickly.

Buck responds by scrabbling for the toilet again.

He spends the afternoon sleeping. He goes to sleep on the couch and when he wakes up he finds his head on Eddie’s lap with a hand in his hair. Chris is sitting at his feet writing something. Buck almost lets out a contented sigh, but the comfort quickly turns to a woozy fear of overstepping. He springs upright so quickly the room disappears from his vision completely and his ears whine. Eventually he blinks Eddie’s face back into focus. He’s disconcertingly close to Buck, filling his entire field of vision with his crinkled brows. Buck’s leaning in before he can stop himself. The panic seizes him just before his lips can crash into Eddie, cutting his breath short and jolting him to a stop, his nose just a hairbreadth away from Eddie’s. His eyes are impossibly large staring into Buck’s. His heart is in his throat and he’s choking on it.

“Buck what’s wrong?” Eddie says, dread dripping from his voice.

“I want to go. I want to go.” He gasps. He lets the thought consume his whole brain so nothing else can slip out.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll take you back to Bobby’s.” Eddie mollifies, trying to brush the panic from Buck’s face with his thumbs.

He tucks his shoulder under Buck’s arm and guides him up with such gentleness that Buck finally feels the heat of tears on his cheeks. His skin stings against Eddie and he can’t breathe until he’s been deposited in the front seat and buckled in like a child. There hardly seems enough air in the truck for them both. Eddie opens the window for him and he doesn’t know if it’s just Eddie knowing what to do or if he’s saying things out loud again.

They’re stopped at a red light and his fatigue has smothered his panic. He rest his head against the door and swivels his eyes to look at Eddie.

“I thought you were mad at me.” The words tumble from his mouth uncoordinatedly.

Eddie looks at him with sharp confusion, “For sleeping on me?”

“No. From before.”

Eddie’s hands tighten on the steering wheel as he pulls away. He looks nervously into the rear-view mirror and Buck follows his gaze. Chris is so quiet Buck’s not sure he’s breathing. Buck’s little outburst from earlier has clearly upset him.

“Sorry, Christopher. I got confused.” He says quietly.

“It’s okay, Bucky. Are you feeling better now?”

“Much.” Buck says turning to look out the window.

Eddie tells Chris to wait in the car while he walks Buck to the door.

“I wasn’t mad at you, I was worried and upset that you weren’t talking to me. It was shitty of me.”

“Sorry I upset you.”

“Wasn’t on you, Buck.” Eddie says squeezing the base of his neck.

The door opens and Eddie pulls him in for a hug before he can cross the threshold. He lets Athena lead him to the couch. He blocks out the low mutter of words Eddie and Bobby are exchanging behind them.

Maddie doesn’t think she’s ever seen her mother so happy before. She’s barely in the apartment for two minutes before she’s got Ara in her arms and that seems to be her new permanent residence. It warms Maddie despite herself.

“Where’s your brother?” She asks not even looking away for a second.

Chimney turns to her, eyes wide with panic and Maddie flounders even though she had the answer on her lips seconds ago.

Albert waltzes in from the kitchen, “He’s sick. It’s just a cold but after the last year he’s being extra careful and staying away until he’s better. Isn’t that right, Ara?” He says handing her the rabbit she loves. He and Buck had chosen it together before the accident.

Maddie has to stop herself from gaping and prays that her parents don’t see Howie mouthing _Who are you?_ behind their backs.

“Always so dramatic,” Margaret tuts, putting the rabbit back down so she can fuss over the baby properly.

It’s surprisingly relaxing and Maddie feels like she’s part of a normal family for the afternoon. If she ignores the gaping hole in the picture where her brothers should be. She’s had a lot of practice at ignoring that hole but she’ll never be as good at it as her mother. Her mother who even fusses over her when it’s Philip’s turn to hold their granddaughter. She brushes her hair away from her face and tells her she’s glowing. Her touch so gentle and her smile so genuine that the nine year old in Maddie scrambles to get the the surface at the reminder of who her mother used to be. The mornings in their parents bed when their dad would bring them hot cocoa and her mom would braid her hair and hold Daniel to her chest to stop him from squirming. She’d gotten so used to the silence she’d forgotten what came before it. Ara’s wails fill the air and the memories slip away again.

“She wants her pacifier.” Maddie says as Howie takes the baby.

“I’ll get it.” Philip says pushing her back down into her seat and following Howie’s directions into their bedroom. 

He’s gone an uncomfortably long time.

“Those are private.” She says sternly from behind him. She’d meant to put them away before her parents came over but she couldn't help but sit and go through them one more time when she'd come to do it and she must have forgotten.

Her father doesn’t stop leafing through the post cards. At least he doesn't seem to be reading them. She pulls them out of his hands, carefully so as not to bend them. She’s been reading them to her daughter because it makes her feel like Buck is there somehow.

“I thought he was dead.”

“What?” Maddie asks feeling suddenly cold.

“All those years, I thought he was dead.”

A nervous titter escapes her lips, “Why would you think he was dead?” All levity draining from her tone.

Philip seems to get lost in himself for a moment.

“Dad?”

He snaps back and she can practically see him constructing the smile onto his face, “Well you know what Evan’s like. One day he’s crashing his motorcycle the next he disappears for seven years. You can’t exactly blame me for the lack of confidence.” He finishes with a hollow chuckle.

“Dad…” She says again and she doesn’t know if she’s trying to reprimand him or ask for more.

“Is he happy here?”

“He doesn’t want me to talk to you about him.” She says because it’s easier than saying he used to be.

“I never understood him. You and… well, you I understood but Evan has always been a mystery to me.”

“He’s not so hard to understand. He just wants to know he’s loved and that he’s not alone.” She says, tears pricking her eyes.

Philip glances at her, “He never believed me.”

Maddie swallows, “Yeah, well, actions speak louder than words sometimes.” She understands what he’s feeling, loathe though she is to admit it, she has the same problem because her actions haven’t always matched her words.

“There in lies the problem.” He says, tone cheerful like a shiny toy presented to distract a child. Conversation over. He spots the pacifier on the sideboard, “Ah, there it is!”


	13. Chapter 13

“I’ll see you later, call me if you need anything.” Chimney says planting a kiss on Maddie’s cheek as he heads for the door.

“Oh, are you leaving now?” Margaret asks.

“Yes, but it’s only a ten hour shift.” He replies shooting Maddie a baffled look.

“We’ll come with you then.” Margaret says standing.

“Er, why?” Chim says slowly.

“To see Evan, seeing as he won’t pick up his phone.”

“Buck’s can’t work yet.” Chimney says without thinking.

“Because of a cold?” Margaret asks incredulously.

“The department is being much stricter about sick days now. Howard you’re going to be late.” She says nodding at the door.

She thinks it’s forgotten. Her mother presses a mug of tea into Maddie’s hands.

“If Evan doesn’t want to see us he should just say so.”

“What?”

“You and Howard are terrible liars.” She says matter of factly bringing her own mug up to her lips. “We haven’t always got along I know, but there’s no need for this childish fibbing.”

It hits a little too close to home, because Maddie can admit to herself, even if she can’t to anyone else, that Buck at the moment is eerily similar to how he was as a child. Each day, she spends a little bit of her limited energy trying not to dwell on that thought.

“We’re not lying.”

Her mother just rolls her eyes and sighs.

“He’s really not well. He doesn’t want you to know the details.”

“The details? What does that even mean?” She says with a laugh, as if the very idea is preposterous.

“It means that you’re not good for him and he doesn’t want you to be a part of his life right now. So, I’m doing my part to make that happen.”

Maddie is suddenly aware of the lines on her mother’s face. The way it draws down more dramatically than it used to.

“What’s he been saying?” She asks and it’s surprisingly non-accusatory.

It unsettles something in Maddie, “Nothing. Why?”

“Well he’s clearly been saying something.” Margaret says stilly.

She stares at her mother and she just knows that she’s staring at a very small part of a much bigger picture. She can’t puzzle it out. All the things that her parents and Evan are not saying are pilling up, stacked behind a door just waiting for her to stumble across it. She’s not sure she wants to figure it out. To open that door. She doesn’t think she can handle it all cascading down on her. She doesn’t think Buck could handle it either.

“Actually it’s what he hasn’t been saying that has me worried.” Maddie says curtly before tipping the remainder of her tea down the drain and leaving the room.

Her mother seems content to ignore the conversation. She’s usually keen to sit and pick apart the argument. Demanding an explanation for your use of this tone here, why you slammed a door there, what possessed you to think you could say that, until you’re so exhausted you never wanted to disagree with her again. If Maddie had gotten more than fours hours sleep the night before she might have seen the flag as red not white.

He’s been trying to figure out how to do it tactfully. He’d been wondering if it would be a conversation better had when the Buckley’s had left town. Athena had eventually brought the same point up to him and they’d decided to wait. Give themselves more time to practice what they’re going to say. Work on tact. It’s never easy but they’re both first responders and they’ve had to ask this question hundreds of times before. The fact that it’s Buck has elevated the task to impossible status. The plan to wait goes out the window after his day with Eddie because Bobby could practically see the thrumming under the kid’s skin. He’s spiralling. Mixing up the present and the past more than he was just a week ago. Buck sits at the head of the table and they sit on either side of him. Perhaps they should have given themselves the morning to plan. Bobby feels like he has no plan here and Athena is lacking her usual nerves of steel. Bobby wants to hold Buck’s hand first but he knows, professionally, that physical touch and this question don’t always mix well.

“Did your parents ever hit you?” He blurts out, his panicked eyes locking onto Athena’s for a second before turning to watch how it lands.

Buck removes his hands from the table, clenching them into his jeans.

“What?”

“Buck, baby, you exhibit a lot of the signs.”

“Yeah, because I have a head injury. They… you can get like, like you get PTSD symptoms and stuff sometimes.” He says scooting his chair back from the table and beginning to pace.

“Okay, Buck. You’re right. I’m sorry, it didn’t come out the way I meant. Why don’t we just take a calming breath?”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Bobby!” He says skirting away towards the kitchen. “What the fuck? My mom didn’t hit me.”

He’s so panicked he doesn’t even notice. Bobby feels like the winds just been kicked out of him and he has to put a hand on the table to steady himself. Athena raises a shaking fist to cover her mouth and turns her head away trying desperately to blink away the tears. Buck stares at them in confusion until his words catch up to him. His breathing becomes impossibly fast.

“Fuck. No, Bobby, no. I swear-” He chokes out, tears streaming, “No. Nothing happened. She didn’t, I swear. I was just confused, my brain… Fuck.”

“It’s okay, Buck.” Bobby’s voice is think and sticky leaving a heavy sensation on his tongue.

“I wasn’t… I’m not some kind of victim.” He says desperately, stepping pleadingly back towards them but looking like he wants to run.

“We aren’t saying that you are, Buckeroo,” Athena says carefully, “But if she did, then it was wrong and you know that.”

“No! No, ‘cuz I was a teenager and I was trouble- it never even really hurt.” He says emphatically.

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t abuse, Buck.” Bobby says and Buck feels sick at the pity in his voice.

“I wasn’t abused!” He shouts and it makes his head explode like a firework. “It was just discipline. I didn’t- I don’t learn from my mistakes and I needed- and the world is an uncertain place and she was just trying to- it wasn’t abuse.”

“If May made a mistake would that make it right for me to hit her?”

“No, but, it’s different. May’s a good kid.”

“So it would be okay if she wasn’t?”

“No! I’m just- I did things and, and- it’s like when you banned me from working, right? Because I wouldn’t listen, I wouldn’t learn. It’s for my own good.” He says and it’s like he’s been shot through with adrenaline. An animal caught in a cage. He backs further into the kitchen.

Bobby crumples. All attempts at composure gone as he slumps, not even bothering to aim for one of the chairs in his vicinity. He sits on the floor and he feels too empty to cry, just stares at Buck in shock. He knew that’d hurt him but he didn’t know what wounds he’d been pouring salt on. Any forgiveness he’d awarded himself for how he’d handle that situation is ripped out from under him.

“Fuck, no, Cap, that’s not what I meant. I meant it was a good thing. It was a good thing!”

Athena makes this aborted heartbroken sound and Buck can’t take it. He doesn’t know what to say to make them understand that it’s okay. He can’t fucking say the right thing and they’re looking at him and he hates it. He hates the guilt and the pity and the remorse because he doesn’t need to be pitied. His head is thumping around his thoughts like a heartbeat. It’s excruciating. His tears blur his vision and Bobby’s face blurs with it. He sees his father, who can’t just turn away like a fucking man, he has to look at Evan with all his guilt and pity and remorse. They’re trying to talk to him but he can’t make out what they’re saying ever his inability to breathe. He can’t do this anymore. He can’t do this again.

“Buck-” She says.

“Shut up! Shut up!” He roars.

Athena lets out something between a scream and a gasp.

She’s fairly certain she heard the bone break. She goes to him, cradling his face as his whole body hitches with uneven breaths.

“I got you, Buck.” She brushes the tears from his hot face.

“Let me take a look, kid.” Bobby says from beside them reaching for Buck’s arm ice pack already at the ready.

“‘M sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.” Buck chants.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Bobby shoots her a look but she refuses to acknowledge it.

“Pretty sure this is broken, we’re gonna have to go to the hospital.” He says after.

They tuck him between them in the waiting room. Bobby has a hand between his shoulders, thumb idly tracing circles, the other is keeping the ice back around Buck’s arm. Athena has a hand on his knee as she fills out the forms. He rubs at his birthmark with his good hand.

“Do you want me to call Maddie?” Bobby says.

Buck just shakes his head. He hasn’t said a word.

They wait for another half-hour.

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do it, I didn’t even realise what I was doing.”

Athena brushes her fingers through his hair.

“Are you gonna ask for a psych consult?” He asks softly.

Bobby recalls the way Buck threw himself at the counter, body wild with panic and rage, “Probably not but it’s something we should talk about later.”

Buck nods but his nerves only seem to up a notch. His arm is already black with bruising. He tries not to think about how his mind is clearer than it has been since he first woke up.

Bobby and Athena stay quiet as he tells the doctor he lost his balance and fell. He gets sent away with a cast and instructions to be more careful. He’s starting to look like a patchwork man, held together by stitches and bandaids. He sits in the back seat and thinks about his apartment. Thinks of his bed and the anonymity and the peace. He’s being turned inside out. The life he worked so hard to forget is leaking out of him. Bobby and Athena keep reminding him that they’re there for him no matter what, that they’ll love every version of him. That’s not the problem. He poured everything into being Buck. He doesn’t want them to love him how he really is because then he has to be that. He wants them to love Buck not Evan. He wants to grind Evan into grains of sand that sink to his feet, he’ll carry them around as long as they aren’t really part of him. He thought he was done being Evan for good. He naps and when he wakes Bobby is sitting in the chair by his bed. He doesn’t roll over to face him, he just knows he’s there.

“I would rather you didn’t tell anyone.”

He knows that shame is common. Especially with men. He’s seen it first hand with Maddie. He doesn’t think he’s ashamed as such, it’s more that he doesn’t like to be known. He doesn’t like being unable to control how people see him. Most of all, he doesn’t want Maddie to know. Not because of the shame but because she’ll never forgive herself. She tried so hard to keep him away from Doug, to protect him, she sacrificed so much of herself, she can’t know that he wasn’t protected at all.

“I won’t tell anyone that you don’t want me to tell.” Bobby says into the room.

“Sorry for freaking out.”

“Buck, don’t. I should have gone about it better.”

There’s silence for a long moment and Buck almost drifts back to sleep.

“Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Bobby thinks that you don’t move like that unless you’re aiming to wound, “That’s not what I asked.”

“No, Cap, I’ve never hurt myself on purpose.” You can't be known if you lie.

Buck wants out. Out of the past, the lies, the love, the state.

“Okay, kid.”

“I don’t know if I can do this.” He doesn’t mean or want to say it out loud.

“Do what?”

“I feel like I’m not made for real life and no one listens to me when I try to tell them.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Hey.”

Buck jumps out of his skin at the sound of Eddie’s voice.

“What are you doing here?”

“Cap’s worried about you. I’m worried about you.”

“I hate people being worried about me.”

Eddie scoff, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, “Then don’t go all King Kong and break your arm or say ominous shit and then refuse to elaborate.”

Buck rolls to face the ceiling but Eddie’s not having it. He pushes Buck’s legs off the bed forcing him to sit then places himself impossibly close.

“I’m just here to listen.”

The words swirl around the room and Buck considers them. People are always listening to him they just never hear him. He’s asked for help before, not always with those words because he can never seem to make them come out, but he’s asked. No one heard. It’s Eddie though. Eddie who understands him on a sickeningly intimate level. He looks at his hands.

“People can just do things, they think the things I think and they’ve been through shit and they can just do it all. I can’t. But, but I do. I get up and I go to work but it doesn’t feel like I can do it. The idea of doing anything just makes me feel… like I’m gonna melt. And it hurts all the time but then that doesn’t feel real because I do it anyway. My brain keeps telling me there’s something wrong with me and then there’s just not.”

“How long have you felt this way, Buck?”

“Always. I don’t understand how everyone else does it.”

The lack of emotion in Buck’s voice makes Eddie’s skin itch.

“With help from the people we love.” Eddie considers saying, ‘I couldn’t do it without you’ but sallows it down at Buck’s words.

“I can’t make myself love anyone enough to make all the pain seem worth it.”

That hits Eddie in the gut like a knife. Twists his insides because Eddie’s always known he’s not enough for Buck, but he never thought he’d hear him say it.

“What are you saying?”

“I love people, and I know people love me and it’s nice and I don’t want to hurt any of you; but if that’s it, if that’s the reason to keep doing all this, then it’s not enough.”

He finds himself gripping Buck’s good arm. “Buck, are you…” his mouth feels dry as bone, “Are you saying you want to kill yourself?” He can’t look at him because he’s not sure he actually wants to know the answer.

Buck turns to him sharply.

“No. I would never. I just meant, there has to be more right?”

Eddie feels his world fall away because he knows it’s a lie. He doesn’t know how and he can’t figure it out because he can’t think of anything except the fact that it’s a lie.

“There is, and you’ll find it. I’m gonna help you find it.” Buck just squeezes his hand. “Did you break your arm on purpose? Please don’t lie to me.”

“God, you sound like my dad. No, I did not break it on purpose.”

He knows it’s wrong. That buck is trying to rinse his hands of them and this is probably the highest order of betrayal. There’s a good chance Buck didn’t mean to say it. Or, that it was a completely innocuous comment. He’s not willing to risk it. Not when it’s Buck. Not when he’s skipped straight past thinking about mourning him to seemingly actually doing it - if the hollow feeling inside of him is anything to go by.

“Eddie?”

“Hey, Chim. I’m looking… is Buck’s dad here?”

“Uh, yes. Why?”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Okay. Do I need to tell you how weird this is?”

“Just get him, dude.”

Chimney disappears and Philip Buckley returns alone.

“Eddie Diaz, sir. I’m Buck’s friend.”

“Philip.” He replies shaking Eddie’s hand, “Can I ask what this is about?”

“I wanted to ask you something. In private. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

Philip hesitates but he must see something in Eddie because he’s making his excuses to his family and grabbing his jacket. Eddie doesn’t beat around the bush, he starts talking as soon as they’ve left the building.

“I asked Buck if he’d hurt himself on purpose and he said that I sounded like you.”

“Evan’s hurt?”

“He’s okay, physically. Has he hurt himself in the past?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking him this?”

“He doesn’t talk about his past.”

“All the more reason I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

Eddie grabs his arm, halting their walk, “I’m worried about him. I’m worried he’s going to hurt himself or worse, so I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

Philip stares at him with wide eyes. He looks almost shell-shocked, Eddie would know.

“Evan was an accident prone boy, we thought he was just a bit of a daredevil, but then at around 13 or 14 I started to wonder if he was doing it on purpose. He would never talk about it so I wasn’t sure until…”

“Until what?”

Philip shakes himself loose and stands straighter. He’s significantly taller than Eddie. He carefully removes all emotion from his face and Eddie can see Buck in him now.

“Look, I really don’t know you. I appreciate your concern for my son but I’m not going to discuss private family matters with a stranger, in public no less.”

“Look, Philip,” Eddie mocks, anger curling his tongue, “I’m trying to be polite because I need your help but you have to understand that I don’t care about you. I don’t care about your family’s dirty laundry. I care about Buck. A hell of a lot more than you apparently, because I’d do anything for him, including talking to you when really what I want to be doing is knocking your goddam teeth in for how you treated him.”

“How dare you-”

“This is serious. This is his life, get over yourself.” Eddie can feel his grip loosening. He’s been consumed with fear for, of Buck since their conversation this morning.

Philip chest deflates, “Is he really that bad again?”

Eddie focuses on his anger not the chill that that word sends up his spine. He clenches his teeth, “I don’t know. Tell me what you mean by again.”

“When he was sixteen I found him- he tried…” He can’t seem to finish but Eddie doesn’t need him to.

The worst part is that it isn’t shocking. Even before this morning. If two years ago you’d told him that the golden retriever of a man had tried to off himself Eddie would have laughed you out of California. That only makes it worse because it’s been there for them all to see from the get go. It’s there in all the ways that Buck tries to make everyone else happy. The way he never talks about his past other than the occasional one liner. The way he absorbs criticism and shies under praise. Always puts himself last. Turns himself inside out for other people. The way he throws himself into burning buildings. Eddie feels sick.

“Thank you.” He says striding off. They hadn’t even reached the coffee shop.

He gets to his truck and he’s so full of… something. Anger, fear, sorrow, he can’t quite tell. Whatever it is it’s completely overpowering. He sags into the driver’s seat and tries to breathe for a second. He punches the steering wheel once and then he’s sobbing. Chest heaving, curling in on himself, heart splintering sobbing. Then he’s not. He cleans himself up with a wet wipe and puts his seatbelt on. He’s not sure what his plan is. He wants to run in their guns blazing, screaming ‘You lied!’ Because he did. He lied to Eddie. Not just about liking his cooking or his truck, about wanting to fucking die. About wanting to leave Eddie. He pulls up outside the Grant-Nash house for the second time. He rings the doorbell. Then rings it again when the door isn’t immediately swinging open. Logically he knows that Buck wouldn’t try anything under Bobby and Athena’s roof but that doesn’t stop the onslaught of images of lifeless bodies his brain supplies. He rings again.

“What did my doorbell ever do to you, Diaz?” Athena says with a raised brow.

“Where is he?”

“Excuse me?”

He pushes past her, scanning the living room for him and heading straight for the guest room when he’s not there. He does storm in, blood pumping with adrenaline. He stops just short of the bed.

“Eddie?” Buck yelps at the intrusion.

Eddie’s breath is heavy in the room.

“You lied.” He breathes out.

Buck gulps, “What?”

“I talked to your dad, Buck. I know.”

“You did what?” Buck growls, getting up and he looks more composed that he has in weeks.

Eddie’s hackles rise but he knew this would come and it’s not the bit he cares about.

“I know, Buck.” He presses, stepping closer.

Buck looks panicked but confused.

“You told me you would never, but you did. You lied.”

Realisation dawns on Buck’s face. His jaw clenches, nostrils flaring, mouth pinched but it’s not anger, Eddie knows that. It’s shame.

“So, what’s the plan, Buck? Hmm? Bottle of pills? Jump off a roof? Swallow a gun? Ignore an evacuation order?” At some point Eddie’s lost control of his tears.

Buck stands stoically.

“That’s enough, Eddie!” Bobby’s voice booms from the doorway.

Buck flinches when he sees Athena and Bobby standing there. Eddie does’t tear his eyes away from Buck.

“No! He knows how painful it is to be left behind but he he’d do that to us anyway.”

Buck looks away at his challenge. Bobby’s hand is on his shoulder dragging him out of the room with a roughness that Eddie wouldn’t expect from him. He pushes him out into the front yard.

“What was that?”

“He tried to kill himself, Bobby-”

“And you thought that shit-show would help how exactly?” Bobby’s posture is borderline threatening, “You are trained in conflict resolution, you never goad or accuse, especially when you don’t know the whole story.” 

“You knew?”

Bobby sucks in a breath, “No, I did not know, and I’m sure this is not how Buck would have wanted me to find out.”

“Yeah, he’d rather you found his body.” Eddie spits back.

Bobby grabs his chin, forcing eye contact, “I know this is scary and love makes you do crazy things, but this is not the place for your anger.” His voice is low and serious.

“Cap?” Eddie says, panic flaring because where did the L word come from? Bobby just cuts him a knowing glare.

“Get out of my house, Diaz.”

Buck feels numb. His feet are sunk into the ground and he can’t move. The only part he can focus on is his father had broken his promise. The one time he’d been thankful for his father’s obsession with maintaining the status-quo was knowing that he’d be too embarrassed to ever tell anyone. Sure, that had also hurt, the confirmation that his life ranked lower than reputation. It wasn’t a surprise but it still hurt. The only service his father had ever provided him was keeping that evening tucked away in a darkened corner. And he had stopped even that. If he’d tell Eddie who’s to say he won’t tell Maddie or their mother. Maybe he already has.

“Buck you need to breathe.” Athena says and he’s not sure when she got so close.

She sits him on the bed and wraps her arm around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry.”

“What’s going on inside that head, Buckeroo?”

“Why would he tell him?”

“I can’t answer that. But, I know if it was me, it would be to protect you.”

“My dad wouldn’t do that.” He says shaking his head.

“Did he know about your mom?”

Buck just nods.

“He never did anything?”

“He used to send her to her sister’s when it got bad.”

Athena squeezes him when she feels him start to retreat into himself, “What they did to you was wrong and it wasn’t your fault.” Buck opens his mouth to object, “No, Buck. No matter how much trouble you were or how much you didn’t listen it wasn’t your fault. Raising a child is not about housing or feeding them, it’s about looking after them, loving them, helping them. They failed you, Buck, not the other way around.”

“Please, stop. I don’t want to hear this.” He squirms away.

Athena catches him, cradling his face between her hands, “I choose you, baby. I chose to give you a second chance after you stole that fire truck and I’ve never looked back. I love you the same way I love May and Harry. You’re my family. You’re Bobby’s family. I choose you.”

“You don’t have to say all that.”

“Yes, I do. I have to say it all day every day until you believe me. You know when I look at you, I see a man who is so generous, with his love, his help, his happiness, with every part of himself. You are such a good man and that is rare. I’ve watched you grow so much in just three years and I’m so proud of you everyday. Of all the times you haven’t given up. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that one day you look at yourself with the same love that I do.”


	15. Chapter 15

It’s weird seeing Dr Copeland in person. It makes it so much harder because she’s a real person that he has to admit things to instead of a screen or a voice. It’s even worse because he has to admit _it_ , which he never has. It’s like the idea of killing himself has been inside him for so long it’s actually part of him. It seems wrong to try and get rid of it. He’s not a hundred percent sure he wants to. He supposes he wants to get better, he wants the idea of it but he just doesn’t think he has it in him to do all the necessary work. To live through all the pain it’s going to bring. Ending it all has been in his periphery vision, glinting like a shiny prize, for as long as he can remember. It’s even harder to let go because he knows he wouldn’t regret it. Not completely. Not when the days he wishes he had just put that damn bike away outweigh the days he’s glad he didn’t. Even during the good patches. It’s like he’s romanticised the idea. He knows the grim reality, but the idea of people admitting how much they love him, talking about him, mourning him, it’s irresistible. It’s somehow more satisfying than people actually caring about him. He feels like if he talks about it, if he loses this, he’s losing himself. He has no idea who he is without it. He’s only a firefighter because he hadn’t thought he’d live to eighteen so he hadn’t made a plan. He let himself stumble into things without getting too committed because none of it mattered if he wasn’t going to be around for much longer. He figured he’d either stumble into his perfect life or he’d die. It didn’t quite work like that though. He’d found something he really wanted and people he really wanted, the perfect life, and still he couldn’t kick the heavy syrup of misery seeping over his life. He’s aware, everyday, that he has so much of what he dreamed for when he was younger, but it’s not a cure-all and that makes it so much harder. Harder because he’s running out of fantasies to keep him going. He’d let himself run off fumes of an imagined future with Eddie and Christopher but after a while it had hurt too much to think about.

He’s so sick of it. He just wants to be able to appreciate what he has. He wants his thoughts to reconnect with his feelings. It’s not just the depression though. And boy, does it feel wrong to say that word, but it’s the injury. He doesn’t just have to face his demons in therapy he has to wake up every day and struggle just that little bit extra. He has to deal with the complete loss of independence. The headaches. The dizziness that plants him on his ass and lands him in a different life time. He thinks he’s probably been through enough by now, right? Hasn’t the universe tested him enough before this? Hadn’t he fought to carry on even when he didn’t want to? He’d worked to get back after the bombing because he knew Bobby couldn’t live with another dead body slung across his shoulders. He’d carried on swimming when all he wanted to do was join the wave of bodies drifting out to sea because Christopher needed him. He’d filed the lawsuit because if he wasn’t fighting he was dead, but he couldn’t voice that to anyone. Surely, he’d paid his dues? All he wants is one thing in his life not to be a battle. Just one thing to be easy and manageable. One thing that doesn’t hurt.

Bobby’s sitting in the waiting room flicking through an interior design magazine. He drives Buck home.

“I want to say thank you.”

“What for?” Buck says tiredly. He’s had his fill of emotional conversations recently.

“For making the effort. I know how hard it can be and I suspect that at this point you’re not doing it for yourself yet, so thank you.”

Buck nods and looks out the passenger window.

“Have you talked to Maddie?”

“I’ve told her I’m starting therapy again.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Hey.”

“Hey, May.”

“I just wanted to check in. I know therapy can suck.”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. It’s okay if you’re not though. I hated it for a really long time.” She says sitting next to him on the bench. It’s nice to see him outside, a little colour in his cheeks.

He considers her for a second before turning back to the yard, “I hate it so much.”

“It felt wrong to talk about it.”

“It does.” He says and it makes guilt ripple through his stomach because he’s making people feel the way he does about May. The helplessness and sadness that her confession induces.

“I have something of yours.”

He raises and eyebrow and she takes a folded piece of paper from her pocket. She hesitates before putting it in his hand.

“I guess I should be glad it’s not a note, considering.”

Buck reads the words and his brain fizzles with bits of memories. That pull to leave because getting out and starting again seemed like second best. He was going to leave. He wanted to leave. He wants to leave.

“I found it by accident. I was being corny, we don’t need to go into it. No one else knows about it.”

“Thank you, May.” He folds it back up, but can’t bring himself to put it into his pocket, “Think you could get rid of it for me?”

May’s smile is bright and relieved. It reminds him of Maddie whenever she’d scoop him up off the sidewalk and see that he was okay.

“Sure.”

“Thanks. Have you ever talked about it with Harry?”

She shakes her head, “I don’t want to put ideas in his head. I talk to him about finding life hard sometimes, how lonely I felt, because it happened when I was his age too, but I’m scared to present it to him as an option.”

“I don’t know how to tell Maddie. How to tell any of them.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t really want to. I hate the idea that people will look at me and think about it. I don’t want her to associate it with me. I want her to look at me and just see her brother.”

“How do you know she won’t?” Then more quietly, “That’s all I see when I look at you.”

He blushes a little and nudges their shoulders together in a thank you before sobering, “I don’t see Maddie. It always takes me a minute to see her and not all the versions of her she could have been if Doug hadn’t happen. I hate myself for that. I don’t want that for her.”

“I get that. I don’t think we get to choose how people see us though. You don’t know how much of it she already notices. I’m not saying you have to tell her but sometimes it’s easier when people can see all of you.”

“You’re scarily wise for your age, you know that?”

“You do know who my mother is, right?”

The fire house is tense. Tenser than normal. Eddie’s angry at Bobby for something. Not usual but not shocking, his temper has been all over the place since Buck, well, stopped being Buck - whenever that technically was. Bobby, despite how professional he is trying to be, is clearly cross with Eddie too. That’s what clues Hen into something being really wrong with Buck. He’s the only one who could have either of them so riled up and out of orbit. Even Chimney is picking up on it. She hasn’t visited him much since his niece was born, Athena had hinted it wasn’t a good time. Normally she’d go after Cap for answers but the bags under his eyes and the uncharacteristic terse set of his shoulders tell her that he needs just a little more time to cool off first.

She sidles up to him on the couch while everyone else is busy.

“What’s got your panties in a twist?”

Eddie glares at her, anger punching it’s way onto his features. Something bad then.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not and it’s obviously to do with our disaster boy. What’s happened?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.” He spews out, casting a hot look at the closed door of Bobby’s office.

Hen pauses. She understands that it’s important to give Buck privacy while he’s healing, especially when he keeps letting things slip, but this is obviously from Bobby’s mouth.

“Okay, so don’t tell me. Give me something to work with though because this place is bad enough without you two dolling out the death glares. You’re going to give Chim an ulcer if he doesn’t figure out what’s wrong soon.”

“Somethings came to light and I didn’t handle it in the best way, I’ll admit that, but Bobby is waiting for Buck to tell people on his own terms.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Eddie clenches his hands, “It’s just safer if everyone knows.”

“Safer?” Hen says mouth pulling with worry.

“Chim?”

“Yes, Cap.” Chimney says head popping up from where he was raiding the leftovers.

“How much longer are Maddie’s parents staying for?”

“I think they’re planning to leave next week.”

“Good. Do you think that you and Maddie could come over tomorrow? I’ll make you lunch.”

“Sure, I’ll run it by Maddie but I don’t see why not. Everything okay?”

“Yes, Buck just wants to see you all.”

“Good, because Eddie came over the other day and it was weird. Philip’s been… on edge since they talked.”

From the cloud that passes over Bobby’s face, Chimney thinks he’s barking up the right tree with whatever this Eddie-Cap tension is.

“What is that?” Maddie says freezing at the top of the stairs.

“Maddie, it’s nothing.” Buck says rising from the couch.

“Oh, good, because I thought it looked like a sling.” Maddie snaps. She descends the stairs and wraps him in a careful hug. “What happened?”

She doesn’t miss the pleading look Buck sends Bobby.

“Why don’t we have lunch first, you guys must be exhausted?”

She’s about to object, to demand an explanation for yet another injury on her brother’s body but Howie brings Ara into Buck’s reach and he smiles, bending to kiss her on the nose.

“Okay, lunch. I’m starving!” She acquiesces.

The lunch is delicious and Maddie can’t help but think how much more relaxing it is to be looked after by Bobby and Athena than it is by her own parents. Especially when Ara starts fussing and Athena picks her up soothing her instantly. Chimney stares at her flabbergasted and Maddie is sure her face is the perfect mirror.

“How?” He whispers.

Athena smiles teasingly, “Practice.”

“Hey, Maddie, do you want to go outside for a bit?” Buck says quietly.

She nods and follows him out onto the bench that over looks the yard. There’s a cool breeze but spring is definitely in the air.

“What happened to your arm?”

“I had a… I don't know, a panic attack, or something, and I hit it against the counter.”

“Hard enough to break your arm?” She says, a shocked squeak to her voice.

Buck rubs the back of his neck, “Yup.”

“Must have been quite some panic attack,” She feels a little breathless, “What triggered it?”

Buck’s hand moves from his neck to his birthmark, pressing just a little too hard.

“Buck?”

“Um, Athena and Bobby asked me a question that I didn’t want to answer?” It shouldn't be a question.

“What was the question?” She wants to pull his hand away before he bruises himself but she knows it’s a comfort tic.

“They wanted to know if,” He shakes his head, “anyone had ever hurt me.”

Her heart is hammering.

“Like a… a boyfriend? Is that why you never told me you were bi?

Tears rush Buck’s eyes and he turns away. She reaches for him but he moves away. He clenches his good hand into his jeans.

“No, not exactly.” He swallows and she can see how much his throat resists it. He looks at the skyline, “Sometimes… after you left, when, when mom was upset-”

“No.” Maddie says because… no. Buck could not have had to live through that too.

“It was never… I don’t think, I mean it was usually just a boxed ear or like… well, you know, it was different back then.”

“She hit you?” Maddie can’t keep the confusion from her voice.

“Kinda, I mean, she never p- it depends what you count as hitting.” He says with a little huff that might once have been a laugh. Maddie looks at him like he’s gone mad. He coughs, “Sorry. She just used to, to lash out. It wasn’t like… you and Doug. It barely ever hurt that much.”

Maddie feels kind of like she’s being strangled. She can’t help but think of Doug and that’s always painful but more than that she’s thinking of Evan. Of the little boy with the blond mop of hair and the sad smile. The 18 year old who was desperately seeking safety in her but seemed resigned to not getting it; she’d thought at the time that it wasn’t like Evan, to just walk away. She had missed it. She had missed it all these years. Even when she knew all the of the signs and all of the red flags and they’d been staring at her in the face. She couldn’t help the little bubble of anger that he hadn’t told her before she invited the woman into her home to be with her baby.

“Lash out?” Is somehow all that makes it out of her mouth.

Buck’s hand releases his jeans after one last white-handed squeeze. It returns to his birthmark, “Uh, like, slap me, or throw things. Sometimes she'd use-" He cuts himself off, a slight tremor running up him, "It depended how angry she was or if dad was home.”

Maddie gasps in a breath, “He knew?”

Buck nods, head low and guilty.

Maddie squeezes her eyes shut against the sting of tears, “And I brought them back.”

Buck finally reaches out, taking her hand, “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice is small and childish.

“You were hurting and I didn’t want to add to it. Also, I wasn’t ready to… admit it. I still don’t,” He sighs in frustration at not being able to find his words, taking his hand back, “Feel the way everyone wants me to feel about it.”

“I’m so sorry, Buck. For all of it.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry. It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t want to ruin your relationship with them, especially with Ara.”

Maddie scoffs in surprise, “I’m not letting them near her again!”

Buck’s face scrunches in confusion, “No, Maddie, she wouldn’t… it was just me.”

“That’s not how abusers work, Buck.”

“She’s not an abuser.” Buck says quietly but forcefully.

“I’ve been where you are now. The blame and the guilt and the genuine idea that it’s not that bad, but, Buck, the people who love you are not meant to hurt you.”

“I hurt all the people I love.”

Maddie moves to cradle his face in her hands and he’s so much bigger than she wants him to be. She wants him to be a child again, to have a better chance at the world.

“You have never hurt anyone you loved. We hurt for you, Buck. There’s a difference.”

He shakes his head and the look in his eyes breaks her heart.

“You’re not l-”

“I tried to kill myself, Maddie.”


End file.
